For health systems to respond to ongoing and emerging health challenges, they must better address existing disparities in access to health services and ensure that they are not exacerbating or creating discrimination that leaves certain population groups behind. How are health leaders taking those groups into consideration? How can health systems meet their needs? Vulnerable and high-risk groups may include but not be limited to people with chronic illnesses and long-term needs, migrants, the ageing population, people with low socio-economic status, etc.
At EHMA 2021 Annual Conference, we will address the disparities in health care access and outcomes and discuss some avenues to address them, such as benefits of the realisation of the larger merger of health and social care and long-term contracts; development of national chronic disease plans and programmes; overcoming resistance to a clinical and managerial change; designing new roles in chronic management models, such as for primary care; payment models.
On Wednesday, 15 September 2021 at 13.30 we will host the first Abstract Session on Improving access to healthcare. Facilitating access to healthcare implies improving the affordability, accessibility, acceptability, availability, and adequacy of care services. As highlighted by this abstract session, many subgroups of the population still face considerable barriers that impede them from accessing the necessary healthcare resources.
Dr Iseult Browne, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Ireland will present the abstract “Assessing the impact of anti PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors on Cancer Care Health and Budget in Ireland” aimed at estimating and informing current discussion around the potential public health and economic impact of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in Ireland.
Mr Chris Santer, Primary Health Properties (PHP), United Kingdom will discuss the research “Delivering value and improving care with primary care estate” explaining what is needed to develop primary care estate are at both UK and international level.
To follow, Dr Ana Gama, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, will then present her research on “Migrants’ access to health care services: A cross-sectional study in Portugal”.
Dr Eva Turk, University of Oslo, Norway and University of Maribor, Slovenia, will evaluate and compare the level of knowledge within the elderly DMT2 patients before and after the implementation of the program and model practices, presenting her study “10 years after: Knowledge of diabetic patients in Slovenia”.
To conclude, Dr Kinga Zdunek, Public Health Department, Medical University of Lublin, Poland will present her abstract “Defending the rights of children with special needs” where she analyzed and linked the public discussions with child health services in the European Union and European Economic Area.
The abstract session on responding to healthcare crisis will be held on Friday, 17 September 2021 at 9.30. Since its onset, the COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching impacts on the delivery of care, access to care, management of patients, and overall healthcare systems. In this abstract session, speakers will present some of the responses that were implemented to face the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its impacts.
Dr Lucrezia Ferrario, Health Care Datascience Lab, Centre for Health Economics, Social and Health Care Management, LIUC University, Italy will open the session presenting her abstract “The innovative drugs economic impact in the management of COVID-19 hospitalised patients” aimed at defining the real-life impact of innovative drugs introduction on the overall economic resources’ absorption required for the hospital management of COVID-19 patients.
Ms Raquel Chantre, Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Central, Portugal will then present her study “COVID-19 as a driver for change: Hospital Outpatient Pharmacy Proximity (HOPP) Program @ CHULC (Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Central)”: the HOPP Program is an example was implemented at CHULC to promote the access to hospital drugs in local pharmacies, focusing the process on the needs of patients, safeguarding and ensuring their safety and, consequently, potentially favouring adherence to therapy and health outcomes.
To follow, Prof Vassiliki Costarelli, Harokopio University, Department of Economics & Sustainable Development, Greece will showcase her research “Adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures and willingness to vaccinate in Greek adults: the role of Health Literacy” aimed at investigating the main factors determining the level of adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures and the willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19, among Greek adults.
Dr Rui Dang, Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan will present the abstract “Gender disparities in access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the SHARE COVID-19 survey for the aged 50+ population in Europe” aimed at investigating the gender-based differences in the nexus between social exclusion and mental health and COVID-19 health care use for the aged 50+ population in 26 European Union Member States plus Switzerland and Israel.
To conclude, Ms Cristina Silva, NOVA National School of Public Health, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal will showcase her research about “What happened to hospitalisations due to ACSC in Portugal before and after the crisis?” aimed at testing the association between the economic and financial crisis, and hospitalisations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSC).
The last abstract session on improving healthcare outcomes will be held on Friday, 17 September 2021 at 13.30, where the last four abstracts under this sub-theme will be presented. A core theme of health management is the improvement of healthcare outcomes. This session will dive into the different ways healthcare outcomes can be ameliorated, including through efficiency improvement, quality development, organisational management, home hospitalisation, and reduce in-hospital stay amongst others.
To start, Ms Andrea Schweiger, Karl Landsteiner Institute for Hospital Organization, Vienna and University of Klagenfurt, Austria will showcase her study on “Quality development of multidisciplinary team meetings in oncological care including patients’ perspectives in treatment decisions: an overview” where she will revealed the critical function of MDTs in cancer care regarding different healthcare factors and investigates the patient perspective in treatment decisions to obtain a better health outcome for cancer patients by implementing the developed self-assessment tool to enable continuous improvement of MDTs.
Mr Alexander Micallef, University of Malta will discuss about “Defining delayed discharges of inpatients and their impact in acute hospital care: a scoping review”, a study aimed at reviewing the literature to identify conceptual and operational definitions of delayed discharges, identify causes and effects of delayed discharges, and also to explore the literature for interventions aimed at decreasing the impact (in terms of reducing the number of delays) of delayed discharges in acute healthcare settings.
To follow, Dr Joana Faro, Centro Hospitalar Tondela Viseu, EPE, Portugal will present the abstract “Hospital at home versus hospital care in patients with the main diagnosis of influenza and pneumonia” where she will present the results of an observational, retrospective, cross-sectional study involving a total of 3145 patients admitted to the hospital at home (HH) and to in-hospital patients, in two Portuguese hospitals, from January 2016 to December 2018.
To conclude the session, Dr Jacopo Fagherazzi, University of Verona, Italy, will discuss the research “Strategic upgrading for efficiency improvement: the preoperative checklist in the protocol “femoral neck fracture in patients over 65 years” at the UOC of Orthopaedics and Traumatology – University Hospital of Verona” where he will present the results of this study.
Join EHMA 2021, the preeminent European conference on health management, meet with experts from Europe and beyond, and be part of shaping the future of health management.