Start of a European Healthcare Transformation Academy

The Healthcare Transformation Academy

The initiators of the Healthcare Transformation Academy identified a dual challenge in future oriented skills development in Europe. Healthcare organisations across Europe need to transform to deliver sustainable high quality care to patients in the future. This means that health and care professionals need to develop new ways of working across traditional specialties and organisational boundaries to realise opportunities to improve health outcomes. Additionally, this requires multi-professional teams to develop new ways of thinking, models of collaboration and innovation, alongside developing new competencies and knowledge.

To make it easier for healthcare professionals in Europe to access continuing education, they EUHA members and their partners are starting a ‘bottom up’ initiative in the form a European-wide Healthcare Transformation Academy. The initiators think that this transformation is best driven from within the healthcare sector itself.

The aim of the Healthcare Transformation Academy is to offer professional development courses which are highly relevant to the needs of the European health systems and easily accessible for professionals. Europe wide shared challenges require multi-professional teams to develop new models for improving health outcomes. Learning outcomes will aim at new knowledge, but also on other important competencies such as networking and mind-set.

The academy will develop various courses and modules to equip healthcare personnel with tools for healthcare transformation from within the organisation. The initial focus for the academy will be on three themes: innovation, high-value and leadership.

• Karolinska University Hospital will adapt their internal training program on innovation management within healthcare providers. The training will transform clinicians into innovation ambassadors, project managers into innovation leaders and managers into innovation promoters able to foster innovation efforts within their clinic. For example, looking at what innovation means in a hospital setting, how to identify unmet needs and how to foster and support innovation.
• Erasmus Medical Center will bring its experience on high-value and outcomes driven care and will adapt the education provided through their summer school into courses offered by the academy. High value care means more than measuring and analyzing outcomes, experiences and costs, but also team collaboration, new care models / reimbursement and service design.
• UZ Leuven will develop a future education program in leadership development, built on their strong record in leadership training and high-value care process management together and in collaboration with the HR directors of the 9 EUHA hospitals.
• Kings Health Partners will bring technical expertise in promotion and implementation of international education programs.

The academy is committed to include patients and citizens in improvement and innovation, through both co creation and “co learning”. To do so the Academy will include patient representation on the Advisory Board of the academy, participation on course instruction and patient perspective workshops. The role of patients/citizens and non-academic partners is to expand the perspective and to create an ecosystem working towards healthcare transformation.

The full list of partners engaged in the project during 2021 are:

• Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus
• Erasmus MC Rotterdam
• Karolinska University Hospital
• King’s Health Partners
• UZ Leuven
• Tartu University Hospital
• Hospital Germans Trias I Pujols
• Karolinska Institutet
• KU Leuven
• TU Delft
• Medtronic
• Philips
• Municipality of Rotterdam
• Region Stockholm

The Value Institute for Health & Care at The University of Texas
The Healthcare Transformation Academy project team has developed a workplan that outlines the contents to meet educational needs identified by the EUHA members, and to achieve self- sustainability in 3-4 years.

The project receives a grant from EIT Health under grant agreement nr210615 during 2021 and is seeking a multiannual funding from EIT Health for years 2022 through 2024.