30 nov – 1 dec 2023
Zürich/ Switzerland.
The first aim of this meeting of health professionals (HPR) presidents was to share best practices for activities in the different member countries.
Practices in the different countries are not that much different in comparison with Belgium. Of course the aim is always to provide our patients with the best possible care, and in this meeting we all shared the same opinions. In lots of countries we feel interdisciplinary care is taking a step backwards because of lack of resources with a task shift as a consequence, to make care as cost effective as possible for hospitals. Patient reported outcome measures are more necessary to indicate the working areas with patients.
The way our healthcare system is organized or the education system is formed is mostly very different. This was the ground of lots of discussions about possible difficulties the national HPR association face in their countries. Recognition of specialization seems to be a recurrent issue when looking for barriers.
The meeting gave the opportunity to share knowledge about the EULAR strategy and support implementation of the strategy and the specific objectives for HPR in EULAR. EULAR has various ways to support HPR’s as well as in an individual way as support for the national organizations. For example: EULAR manifesto that is carrying the EULAR message towards the EU parliament or EULAR research center which supports scientific research in rheumatic disease.
PARE was also involved in the meeting, which stimulates our collaboration with the patients organization.
For us now, it’s important to carry out the HPR core competencies to our members and to all stakeholders who help support the Belgian HPR.
Further, the aim of EULAR HPR is to grow with more member countries. We see there is a difference in the number of participating countries for rheumatologists and patients: less HPR countries participate in EULAR. Turkey and Greece are joining, for this moment 23 countries are participating for EULAR HPR.
In my opinion, this was a good opportunity to get to know EULAR better and have good networking possibilities with other countries. It would also be a good opportunity for fellow or future board members of BeHPR to be able to participate in this meeting.
Thanny Bries,
Coordinator BeHPR
