After the Volcano

Another year and we find ourselves not only going back to Europe but being asked to go back. Having a World Health Organization Collaborative Center doing the asking is not a bad deal. Next week Mr Tom Kurtz, our CEO at the Windber Research Institute (WRI) will be leading a five person entourage from Pennsylvania to the World Health Organization Health Promoting Hospital Conference in Turku, Finland. This team will consist of Mr Kurtz, Dr. Carla Zema from St Vincent University, Barbara Adons, RN from St Mary Medical Center, Ms Charvonne Holliday and myself from WRI. Spending an extra week in the UK last year due to mother nature was certainly an event, especially for my 17 year old son who most definitely benefited from that academic and environmental experience. Some ground shaking work will be in the offering this year but hopefully, and only, from our own doing.

As these large international conferences go the plenary session is a key event where all of the participants, 500 in this WHO event, are expected to attend. Charvonne Holliday and I are preparing a presentation that will allow this esteemed audience to hear about the work our WRI team has done in the area of violence prevention. Over the years we have been successful in identifying funding for our community based projects due to our compulsive nature to evaluate and monitor what we do. The alternative to that at times and unfortunately is to fund a program, offer the program to the community but never fully or appropriately evaluate all the steps in that process. For the first time in the 19 years of this conference there will be a 2 hour workshop on just how to do that. The scientific committee of the organization has asked the Pennsylvania based group to be that scientific team doing the honors for this international group of hospital and health service administrators, public health professionals and health care workers.

I have once again been asked to present our work at one of the break out sessions. Here we will talk about our collaborative project with one of the largest health care systems in Europe, Ospidal Civili. Per the invitation of this hospital I will have the opportunity to spend a week in Brescia, Italy prior to the WHO conference preparing this presentation and advancing this pediatric asthma clinical and health promotion project. While in Italy I will also be traveling to Padova where I will have the opportunity to present our bullying prevention work to the Psychology Dept at the University of Padova. This Center and the Windber Research Institute have been collaborating in determining the health effects of bullying and the cost benefit to prevention programs.

And as I did last year, I will be moderating a session where several hospital and health system leaders will present their programs to that interested group of colleagues. In a similar session The Italian University and WRI will be presenting our collabotrative work on developing a pediatric clinical/health promotion data base.

As we did at the Windber Research Institute and the Windber Medical Center several years ago, Tuku will be holding a event similar to our WHO Winter School, but this time in sunny Finland. Here, I will have the opportunity to teach new members of this 700 hospital organization about the Health Promoting Hospital Network and our many other projects, including the Windber and Copenhagan health promotion project which is about to be published. Lastly, I have the privilege to represent the United States and Pennsylvania at the Governance Board meeting of the organization.

All of this is funded though our Pfizer grant as well as stipends we will receive from the World Health Organization Health Promoting Hospital organization and our Italian colleagues. Wish us well. We will do Pennsylvania proud. Baring any volcanoes we will be back June 5th to report on a successful journey.