After almost a year of knowledge exchange and capacity-building support to healthcare authorities willing to adopt or scale-up integrated care, the AER and the project partners were eager to share the experience and the results of the SCIROCCO Exchange Knowledge Transfer Programme with a great variety of international healthcare professionals and practitioners.

The SCIROCCO Exchange is a project co-founded by the third Health Programme of the European Union and lead by the Scottish Government. It provides evidence-based capacity-building support to health and social care authorities across Europe for the adoption or scaling-up of integrated care within their local healthcare systems. In this context, the AER in cooperation with the Scottish Government have worked with nine healthcare authorities for the co-development and implementation of nine personalised knowledge transfer programmes aimed at preparing the ground for the transition towards integrated care and to improve existing system design.

Despite the constraints posed by the pandemic to in-person-activities and to the resources of the healthcare sector, the needs and objectives of the healthcare authorities were still confirmed and the knowledge transfer continued. While knowledge transfer activities were mostly re-shaped in an online setting, this did not limit their impact and rather offered new opportunities for learning, involving a larger number of experts, fostering long-term professional connections in the sector, as well as for relying on an active network of partners also for the exchange of knowledge and practices regarding new needs brought about by the pandemic (as with the organisation of the workshop COVID-19 – Mental Health & Well-being of Healthcare Professionals with Scotland and South Denmark Regions).

Hence, we have been eager to share our experience and results with the broader healthcare community in the context of two major international conferences – the 2021 European Health Management Association (EHMA) Annual Conference, and the 2021 North America Conference on Integrated Care (NACIC).

SCIROCCO Exchange Knowledge Transfer Programme at EHMA 2021 – Health Management: Managing the Present and Shaping the Future

From the 15th to the 17th of September, the AER took part in the EHMA 2021 annual conference organised online but through the lenses of Lisbon. The event gathered more than 400 representatives of the healthcare system to exchange about key challenges in leading and managing the current and future health services.

Through a poster presentation, the AER shared with the healthcare experts the process for the co-definition and the implementation of knowledge transfer in SCIROCCO Exchange, and how this was re-adapted to the circumstances of the pandemic in order to make it both resilient and equally effective in its capacity-building objectives.

Lastly, the paper for the poster was included in the EHMA 2021 Abstract Book published after the Conference.

SCIROCCO Exchange Knowledge Transfer Programme NACIC 2021 – Innovation. Inspiration. Integration: Co-designing for health and wellbeing with individuals and communities.

From the 4th to the 7th of October, the AER together with the Scottish Government, Kronikgune institute in the Basque Country, and the National Health Fund in Poland took part in the first NACIC 2021 Annual conference organised online in  partnership with the University of Toronto, KPMG Canada, HSPN and iCOACH. The event was a great opportunity to debate with over 300 healthcare professionals and patients about the importance of co-designing healthcare services with individuals in order to improve the effectiveness of health and social care system design and achieve more person-centred care.

In this context, the AER organised a workshop presenting how the SCIROCCO Exchange knowledge transfer programme was developed and implemented to provide local-based support for the adoption of integrated care, and especially to support citizens’ empowerment in the design and management of healthcare services. To this aim, the workshop shared first information concerning the overall process developed by the project, the tools employed and available for replication, and the knowledge transfer programme. Additionally, the experiences of the Basque Country and Poland were presented to provide concrete good practices on how knowledge transfer supported the healthcare authorities in preparing the ground for citizens’ empowerment within their systems.

Presentations from the workshop can be accessed here!