Health Facilities As Critical Infrastructure: A Journey To A More Resilient and Sustainable Future
In challenging times or with constrained resources, how can health facilities continue to support population health needs? How can they improve their clinical, environmental, social and financial performance, while coping with the need to be adaptive and flexible? How do we build resilience into existing and new infrastructure, and ensure that it has a sustainable future? How can we be realistic, as well as ambitious, in creating future healthcare infrastructure?
The main programme of the 2025 EuHPN workshop will take place over two days, 29-30 September 2025, with 01 October devoted to optional study tours of two up-to-the-minute and important hospital sites in Oslo.
Main programme, 29-30 September
This year the workshop will examine how health facilities can aim for excellence and drive transformational progress, even when coping with financial stress, staff shortages, rapid and sometimes unpredictable advances in technology, and shifting patterns of health need. You can find the draft programme [here]. The key areas of focus will be:
Resilience. Making health facilities resilient to clinical, financial and operational challenges – through adaptive design and construction, responsiveness to changing care models and future-proofing for the coming decades.
Excellence. Achieving excellence with constrained resources – by re-using existing estate, innovating through design and procurement, or investing in emerging technologies.
Multi-purpose design. Collaborating with other stakeholders to create multi-use, multi-function spaces and facilities to support system-wide care.
Sustainability. Taking sustainability to the next level – going beyond Net Zero, adapting buildings to new roles in healthcare, or committing to fully circular economies for structures, equipment and supplies.
Maximising the moment. Upgrading existing facilities, breathing new life into older assets, and making the best of what we have right now – without breaking the bank.
Security in critical infrastructure. Ensuring that health facilities can be secure and responsive, even as the world faces increasing threats from conflicts, pandemics and climate crises.
Study tours, 01 October
This year we are offering two optional study tours on the third day of the workshop, with the possibility of attending both.
These will be to the sites of:
The Radiumhospitalet,
The new psychiatric hospital at the Akershus University Hospital campus.
These projects (the latter, in the final phase of completion) are major infrastructure investments that have been shaped by the most up-to-date models of care for oncology and mental health/substance misuse, and use the latest in tools and technologies for planning, designing and constructing health facilities.
EuHPN will coordinate coach transportation from the workshop venue to both study visit locations. Tour participants will be able to leave luggage on the coach. The tours will finish no later than 15:00 and we may be able to arrange for onward transportation to Oslo airport from the second study visit location.
Our speakers and facilitators
This year we welcome an amazing range of expert speakers and facilitators, drawn from professional backgrounds in health facility planning, design, engineering and construction, healthcare infrastructure financing, facilities management, clinical science and academic research. They represent public and private sector organisations from countries and health systems across Europe. As ever at EuHPN events, our speakers and facilitators aim to inform, challenge and engage with our audience.
You will find more information about the speakers and facilitators, and the topics they will address, in the draft workshop programme.
Our supporters and sponsors
In 2025 we are delighted to have the support of Sykehusbygg, the Norwegian hospital planning agency. You can find out more about Sykehusbygg’s mission and work here.
Our sponsors this year include two global companies: Gerflor and Omega365.
Gerflor designs, manufactures and markets a huge range of products for flooring and interior finishings in healthcare buildings, and has been a long-standing supporter of the European Health Property Network.
Omega365 Solutions is a Norwegian company with deep knowledge in project management from close to 40 years of experience in the Norwegian Oil & Gas industry. Omega365 Solutions solution "PIMS" has been chosen by Sykehusbygg as the national tool for project management and the solution "Omega365" is the national FM tool.
More about EuHPN workshops
The EuHPN annual workshop is not an academic conference, and it is not a commercial event. It is a meeting place for professionals working in healthcare infrastructure development, with a range of different backgrounds in facility design, construction and management, healthcare engineering, project management, infrastructure financing, academic research and R&D. The overall aim of each workshop is to share knowledge and learn about best practice and the latest thinking in the field. Our speakers and our audience reflect this eclectic mix, and represent many different types of organisation from the public and private sectors.
The workshop’s location changes from year to year, with recent events being held in Barcelona (2024) and Copenhagen (2023). You can view the presentations from these events here. In 2025 we are delighted to be in Oslo, at the Holmenkollen Park conference centre and hotel. The workshop is being organised with the collaboration and support of Sykehusbygg (the Norwegian health facility planning agency), the EuHPN board and our network member organisations.
The workshop’s main programme takes place over two days, with a mix of keynote speakers and thematically arranged presentations. With audience numbers capped at around 100 attendees, there are ample opportunities for interactive discussions. These often continue outside the hours of the formal programme, at the workshop dinner or at other social opportunities. Our workshops attract sponsorship from a small number of supporting organisations, and we encourage their representatives to take a full and active role in contributing to the workshop’s learning aims.
On the third day of the workshop we organise optional study tours of health facilities in the local area, aiming to showcase some practical examples of innovation and excellence.
Spread the word!
EuHPN workshops are multinational, multi-professional, and a great way to learn about the latest in healthcare infrastructure development. We would love to hear your proposal for a presentation, and you should feel free to encourage your colleagues and contacts to do the same.