Research News

THE IHF YEL INITIATIVE
Young executive leaders who have proven outstanding merit in healthcare management can have the chance to exchange with peers on capital healthcare issues, as well as to interact with talented thought leaders from all around the world. Through IHF Young Executive Leaders program, participants will build sustainable relationships and expand their network internationally. As a group, they will discuss current trends, challenges and opportunities for the young healthcare leaders of today, creating an environment for vibrant and exciting dialogue.

THEME AND STRUCTURE
Throughout 2021, the selected Young Executive Leaders (YELs) will share experience and work together on topics related to the 2021 World Hospital Congress (WHC). The selected topics are a vehicle rather than an objective per se. Through this program, IHF seeks to connect young leaders across the world, broadcast the younger generation’s perspectives on global challenges, and build sustainable relationships. The program ends in November at the WHC, to be held 8-11 November 2021 in Barcelona, after which they will join the growing YEL Alumni.

Due to the crisis that we faced worldwide in 2020, the YELs mainly focused on 2 topics:
1. The challenges of being a digital leader in times of Covid-19
2. Towards post-Covid-19: Lessons Learned and Challenges for Hospital Leaders

One of the best ways to honor the sacrifices made in the fight against COVID-19 is to learn, improve and transform our healthcare institutions and system to be safer, stronger and better for our patients, staff and local communities.

The IHF Beyond COVID-19 Taskforce has published a new report offering insights into how hospitals can embrace new ways of delivering healthcare, whilst responding to the evolving coronavirus pandemic: ‘Building the ‘New Normal’: Harnessing transformative practices from the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Acting as a radical disruptor to the ‘normal’ way of doing things, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated transformations within healthcare at an unprecedented pace. Never have hospitals and healthcare organisations been forced to change so radically in such a short period of time. We have seen critical care services being run virtually using digital technologies; organisations rapidly up-skilling staff and mobilising volunteer carers at scale; the breaking-down of workplace silos to ensure patients receive integrated care; creative architectural solutions to manage flows of people in and out of hospitals as part of infection control.

Success can be defined in a variety of ways, but all the definitions have one common denominator, the achievement of set out goals or purposes. Similarly, in the context of COVID-19, success stories are defined and measured in various ways – from a better understanding of the disease, a greater testing capacity, a reduction in numbers of infected persons, lowering mortality rates, and other metrics.

Online training over 4 weeks during 3 – 27 November 2020

Deadline for submission: 18 October 2020, 18:00 CET

Background

WHO is developing activities to support the country pandemic preparedness and to mitigate the current COVID-19 pandemic which is accompanied by an infodemic. There is an urgent need to address the infodemic accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, as most countries are battling both. As the world seeks to accelerate the development of medical countermeasures including treatments and safe, effective vaccines, as well as introduced public health measures, misinformation about both has been spreading and growing.

In order to successfully address and mitigate the current infodemic and promote more effective future response, conference participants of the WHO 1st infodemiology conference recently contributed to a draft public health research agenda that cuts across many fields of specialization. From physics to law to behavioral science to epidemiology to user experience and design—it is clear that an infodemic manager would need a wider array of skills and expertise to successfully address infodemics that go beyond traditional boundaries of epidemiology, risk communication and community engagement and digital media.

WHO and partners invite applications from experienced professionals from the fields of epidemiology, risk communication, health service delivery/health care workers, digital health, policy making (in health and intersectoral), who are responding to the current COVID-19 and overlapping infodemics at country level.