This year's EuHPN workshop took place in Bologna, Italy, from 12 to 14 October, with the theme 'Sustainable European Healthcare Infrastructure: Innovation in procurement, planning and design for a green future'.  You can download the final programme here.

EuHPN is very grateful to the speakers and other audience participants, to our hosts SIAIS (Italian Society for Healthcare Architects and Engineers), and to our workshop partners LCB-HEALTHCARE.  We look forward to welcoming EuHPN members and others to next year's workshop - venue and date to be confirmed.

EuHPN would like to gratefully acknowledge the support offered by our workshop sponsor:

The Executive Director of EuHPN has recently chaired an independent review of the proposed location of the National Paediatric Hospital of Ireland.

Planning for a new National Paediatric Hospital in Ireland has been underway for some years.  After a series of high level reviews of paediatric services, a National Paediatric Hospital Development Board was established to take the project from the concept stage to detailed plans for the hospital’s design.  The recent reverses in Ireland’s economy, coupled with a change of government, prompted a need to re-assess the project, and Ireland's Minister for Health and Children opted to make use of international expertise to accomplish this.

Sustainable European Healthcare Infrastructure: innovation in procurement, planning and design for a green future

This year’s European Health Property Network workshop is being organised in partnership with LCB-HEALTHCARE, a European Lead Market public procurement network that aims to stimulate innovation for low carbon, sustainable, green solutions in the healthcare building sector.  The hosts for the 2011 workshop are the Società Italiana dell’Architettura e dell’Ingegneria per la Sanità (SIAIS; Italian Society for Healthcare Architecture and Engineering).  Download the preliminary programme and registration form here.

Healthcare facilities are public buildings, and therefore have to meet national minimum standards in relation to fire safety, staff and patient safety, and – often – areas such as light levels, accessibility for disabled visitors, air quality, and a number of other basic measures.  These standards are normally enshrined in legislation, and may therefore be embodied in the guidance offered by professional bodies, consultancy companies, and other relevant agencies.

The 2010 EuHPN workshop has been captured in an event report, thanks to input and help from colleagues from Loughborough University, UK, who are part of the Health and Care Infrastruture Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC).  You can download the report here.  The workshop examined the theme of ‘big bang’ versus ‘incremental’ development of the health estate, with speakers invited from a range of disciplines, organisations and countries, to contribute to a programme that had three main sub-themes:

International speakers from across Europe, North America and Australia will join together at Design & Health Europe 2010, an international symposium taking place from 7-8 October at the University Hospital Brussels in Belgium.  The symposium will explore global perspectives on human health and wellbeing as the foundation for a productive society, economic development and social and political harmony, with a focus on international health infrastructure development.

Sykehusplan is a web-based centre for the exchange of experience and information concerning hospital planning and hospital development.  Operated by Norway's SINTEF Health Research, and owned by the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs, Sykehusplan is mainly focused on hospital projects in Norway.  However, the site's blog and news sections contain all manner of links and opinion pieces from around Europe and the world. 

The same site will also take you to information about the Competence Network for Hospital Planning (CNHP), an open network for organisations and persons working with or interested in planning and constructing health care buildings, organising or operating hospitals, plus research and development in these fields.

Click here to visit Sykehusplan.no.

As part of the Low Carbon Building: Healthcare project, partners are conducting a brief web survey of stakeholder views on the barriers to effective, innovative procurement of low carbon solutions for healthcare buildgings.  You are invited to take part - all you need to do is click here and answer a few questions.  The survey will take only a few minutes, and your responses will help to shape a report to be published later in the year.  If you haven't already done so, you can also sign up as an LCB stakeholder. 

The Low Carbon Building Healthcare project is aimed at creating a European Lead Market Public Procurement Network to stimulate innovation for Low Carbon Building Solutions in the Health Service Sector. 

EuHPN is a partner in this EU Commission-funded project.  Join us at the LCB website, where you can sign up to become a stakeholder.  We welcome interest from everyone involved in commissioning and procuring healthcare infrastructure and equipment, as well as all those public and private organisations involved in the supply chain.

This year's EuHPN workshop was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in collaboration with Locum AB and Karolinska Institutet.  Participants came from all corners of Europe, but we were also fortunate to have a number of colleagues join us from Australia. 

EuHPN is currently working on a report of the the workshop, in collaboration with colleagues from the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC).  This will be available after the summer on this website - watch this space.