Diabetes Prevention Unit, Karolinska Hospital

Abstract

Since the early eighties the reorientation of health services towards health has been an important issue on the international public health agenda. In 1986 WHO arranged the first meetings in which efforts were made to define a program for health orientation of hospitals. A "Health Promoting Hospital" was defined as a hospital with a health-oriented management and a concern for the health-development of its patients and its personnel as well as for the health development of the public in its catchment area. Over the years many hospitals in Europe has joined the movement of "Health Promoting Hospitals". These hospitals collaborate together in an international network under the leadership of the WHO Regional Office for Europe and with the network's secretariat located in the Bolzman Institute in Vienna. The wide participation in this network has lead to the formation of national networks of "Health Promoting Hospitals". The Swedish Network for Health Promoting Hospitals started 1996, and is coordinated by the Linköping Center for Public Health Sciences. For a membership, the hospitals management must sign the same general contract as for the international network. In addition the Swedish Network has specific demands: The perspective of HPH as outcome oriented institutions is stressed. By this is meant that management is governed not only by evidence based medicine but also by outcome-based management, using outcome measurements resulting from routine outcome studies in the hospital/clinic. The outcome should be judged by the professionals, but in addition the patients own self-rated health status should be measured. Each member hospitals are supposed to carry out and report on at least three studies, called Sub-projects. The Sub-project have to relate to each of the following main topics: * Health gain for patients * Health gain for personnel * Health gain for the society. In April 1998, the network had 14 members. The members represent small and large hospitals, but also health care organizations; i.e. districts with several hospitals and including primary care. This latter form is maybe a next step in the development of HPH into HPHCO (Health Promoting Health Care Organizations). Such development would, if driven by an outcome governed management, open a possibility to establish and evaluate the complete caring chain, from the high tech hospital care to primary preventive/health promoting measures in the local community. To achieve this, outcome-measurements and outcome-monitoring is mandatory. It is the objective of the network to work in concert on the refining of out-come measurements and to introduce outcome measurements in the daily routine work in support of clinical decision making and management improvement.

Keywords

Health Promoting Hospitals

Contact

Kristenson Margareta

Institution

Center for Public Health Sciences, University of Linköping

Postaddress

Folkhälsovetenskapligt Centrum

City

SE-581 85 Linköping

Country

Sweden

E-mail

Margareta.Kristensson@fhvc.lio.se

Phone

+ 46 13 22 50 75

Fax

+ 46 13 22 50 95