The topic "Health" is one of the main policies of the European Union (EU). The national authorities are responsible for organizing and providing health care and the task of the EU is to complement the national policies. Health also has an important impact on economic prosperity. Concrete EU measures include the development of tools to help EU countries to work together and identify best practices. In Germany a large number of health networks and health regions have been established in recent years and also Austria knows the benefits of the concept of regional health networks. Health regions describe themselves often as geographically defined clusters that aim to ensure a coordinated health and social care of the population through a network of all stakeholders involved in the supply process. On this background Com.HeNet will develop tools, which help EU countries to work together and identify the merger of the players or stakeholders into a "Health Network" (HN) as a process in which the improvement of and the access to health of the citizens in the different living environments in a specifiable region is focussed, as good practice. Aim of the project is to develop curriculum modules for "Health Network Management" (HNM) with a European standard, which enables a professional in health to implement and manage a HN on regional level. To get an efficient overview about the needed competences for this HN manager and the given structural and environmental circumstances, these competences will be analysed by desktop research and structured/guided interviews with relevant stakeholders and experts in the participating countries and envolved into national competence profiles. On basis of the national competence profiles a core competence profile will be developed for a HNM through comparison of all collected information and a collation with relevant European Competence Frameworks and European Qualification Framework (EQF). Furthermore an important objective are the curriculum modules on EQF level 6 with content and materials on basis of the developed core competence profile. These curriculum modules will be tested by a pilot training with participants presenting the later target groups and will be reviewed on basis of the pilot training and the feedback. Further on, an important objective of Com.HeNet is the description of a Data Management System and the development of a guideline for digital skills and competences, on basis and with the use of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.1), which both will be used for the development of the curriculum modules, as an independent Output of the project and for the implementation and the later management of the HN by the managers. These are important aspects, because of the proceeding digitalization and the significance of the use of digital data and information for improving health care and prevention of people. Therefore these Outputs also will flow into the development of the curriculum modules. The curriculum modules as important Ouput of the project are expected to get included into higher education and vocational education curricula to enable professionals in health to implement and manage HN on regional level in EU countries. On the longer run the project contributes to the improvement of the regional supply structures in EU countries. In this way Com.HeNet contributes to the EU Health Strategy. Therefore the curriculum modules have an explicit European added value and will contribute to overcome the mismatch between given and needed competences in health sector across the EU. Long term aim of the project is the further cooperation of the project partners, the participating stakeholders and experts. The long-term presentation and dissemination of the curriculum modules are of great importance for all project partners. Furthermore the consortium will check the possibilities for further cooperation projects for an implementation of regional HN in several partner countries on basis of the developed curriculum modules and the digital competence guideline. Therefore the partners need a strong, trustful and efficient network on regional, national and European level.
The Com.HeNet project has the following four objectives: - IO1: Identify the national competences of regional health network managers and convert them into national competence profiles - IO2: Identification of transnational competences of regional health network managers with an European claim - IO3: Development of European curriculum modules for the education & training of regional health network managers - IO4: Description of an accompanying data management system for the management of health regions and a guideline for the necessary digital skills and competences An overarching goal of the project was to deepen the international partnerships in the consortium and to build up a strategic network of institutions for further cooperation and projects.
Health is still one of the main policies of the European Union (EU) as the last years with a worldwide pandemic situation have shown. Moreover, several European reports and papers (e.g. Health at a Glance: Europe, OECD 2018; mentioned in the project application and consulted in the preparation of the application) have shown that there are still remarkable differences in the quality, the structure of and the access to health care systems across the EU. Furthermore, WHO has presented with „Health 2020“ a framework strategy for Europe, to reach a better strategic planning, innovative management, efficient cross-sectoral work and a work culture that includes more and new approaches for connection and cooperation between all existing health services. Furthermore, there are European measures including the creation and development of tools and instruments to help several EU countries to work together, identify best practices and to tackle health related problems (see project application). The concrete idea for this project emerged out of a national research preparation project of the project partners FOM, ELTE and FDIBA. In that previous project the team analyzed the options for so called health regions and in the end discovered and elaborated the need for a bottom up based concept for health network managers, which are able and educated to build up and manage a network of regional stakeholders and actors related to the field of health. Aim of the previous project was to discuss the possibilities to build up so called health regions in the project countries, which based on the concept of the existing model of Bavarian health regions plus. Nevertheless, as mentioned an important result of that project was the fact that first, a concept was needed to educate a person to be able to implement and manage that kind of network at the beginning, because there does not exist an European educational standard for that. Therefore, in the run-up of the project, the project team identified the need for a possibility of networking of several relevant actors and stakeholders. Within this approach, the improvement and the access of European citizen to health and health related services should be improved. Furthermore, an aim of the Com.HeNet project, which arised from these considerations, was to create a framework which enables and leads to more comparability and transparency of skills, competences and education methods in this field in the European Union. Precisely because the health systems and standards are still so different in the European partner countries, the project set it to a goal, to lead to more comparabilty and transparency and to improve the competences and skills of (young) European people in the field of health profession. An additional aim was to raise the awareness of citizen to regional health related services, possibilities and approaches which fits to their individual life and which helps the region to improve access and transfer in health questions. These goals were achieved within the project.