Excited postings about our international work are coming soon! Please stay posted!!
Category: World Health Organization
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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.
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World Health Organization and Health Promotion – Why?
In 2009, international health experts arrived at Windber, PA, to lend us some of their expertise. We heard and discussed how we as a community; how we in our hospital systems can improve the health outcomes of our citizens and community. Those in attendance were clinicians, nurses, academicians, scientists, managed care executives, information technology specialists and an executive pharmaceutical team from NY. The one comment most of these folks made as the session was winding down and finally came to an end was how exhausted they were. Can you imagine having your world turned upside down on such issues as universal health care? Or this new terminology called clinical health promotion serving as the proven, evidence based approach to not only improving the health of our patients, but assuring us of better chance of getting out of the hospital quicker and with fewer complications.The easy answer to the why the WHO came to town is that it is an organization having a 20 year track record in hospital based health promotion, the new lingo in the vocabulary of US politicians. In the U.S. we pay more for our health care then any of the other developed countries and have poor health outcomes as a result. It is time we look outside of our borders for help. Taiwan did it and several other countries are doing pretty well with their health care. In my twenty years as a hospital based physician I have experienced numerous hospital consultants, regulatory and health award groups entering a hospital environment to either announce the great things we are doing as hospitals or how to lay claim to better patient care. Thousands and millions of dollars are spent on such questionable practices. And how has all of this improved the health of out communities, our nation? We have seen the result, a fragmented and broken health care system. Millions are uninsured; more under insured and bankruptcy, due to health insurance bills, in now all too common for thousands of U.S families. I have to wonder whether international health experts, with a proven track record, were invited to the recently held presidential forums to offer advice on health care reform. Most likely not and the same politicians or health care leaders that have gotten us into this situation were again touting their expertise or referring to their best selling novels.
Another message we received from our visiting international experts is that our patients must ask some additional questions of their physicians or surgeons as they are preparing for surgery or a hospitalization. A physician telling you, the patient, of his specialty or his or her many years of experience should not be enough to assure us of the best outcome. Doctor, what evidence is there to support your decision? This is the question we need to now ask as we rise to that next level of health education.
Dr. Tim Neuman from Germany summed it up well during the panel discussion at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. “You are a bizarre country,” when he described the many concerning issues we have in this country, but “for this event I see solidarity.” Some thing we need to see more of at the grass root s level. A thank you to the community, our partner, the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; our sponsors; and the fine folks at the Windber Research Institute and Medical Center. Oh, and by the way, the cost to the hospital for this WHO consultation was around $400, which is expected to be reimbursed once all the other bills are paid. Not bad, and probably difficult to comprehend.
Matt Masiello, M.D., MPH 