The IHF Governing Council, following its meeting in May 2006 at the IHF Secrtretariat in Ferney Voltaire, France, agreed on the way forward as outlined below:

Mission, vision, business plan and activities

The International Hospital Federation (IHF), founded in 1947, is an international Non Governmental Organisation, supported by members from over 100 countries. As the worldwide body for hospitals and healthcare organisations it develops and maintains a spirit of cooperation and communication among them, with the primary goal of improving patient safety and of promoting health in underserved communities.

The IHF vision is to become a world leader in facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experience in health sector management. Through thedissemination of evidence-based information, IHF will help improve patient care quality around the globe.

IHF collects, collates, publishes and facilitates the exchange of information and ideas on best practice in hospital and healthcare management. It assists in the creation of environments that support organisations in the promotion and delivery of healthcare. It fosters international partnerships that promote interaction among public and private hospitals and healthcare organisations, the community and commercial entities.

The IHF vision will be promoted through events, publications, networking and projects in line with the mission and values of the IHF. These activities will prioritize information on the leadership and management of hospitals and health services. The focus will be on both developed and developing nations and the learning that can be achieved through dialogue between countries, organizations and individuals.

The IHF is driven by its founding ethos that it is the right of every human being irrespective of geographical, economic, ethnic or social condition to enjoy the best standard in quantity and quality of health and access to hospital and health care services. By promoting this value, IHF is supporting the improvement of the health of society.

The provision of health and health care to all people recognises and accepts current best practice in medical standards and patient care as well as the ethical behaviour and standards of integrity required to govern, lead and manage healthcare organizations.

The IHF strives to promote and protect the dignity, safety and welfare of patients.

Membership and communications

In addition to publications, events and projects IHF will offer other types of services to members such as acting as a bridge between members in order tofacilitate and support cross-fertilization of knowledge and experience inmanagement and leadership of health organizations. Through networking the IHF will support the creation of new national hospital associations and thereby ensure the involvement of an increased number of countries in its activities and an expansion of its possible membership.

The IHF will communicate with and engage our members in order to disseminate the new mission statement and to take into account their responses.The new e-newsletter will be a crucial tool to keep IHF in touch with its members and for engaging members more actively with each other.

Partnerships

IHF will work with partners who share our goals. IHF will identify potential strategic competitors in order to avoid conflicts. We will work with partners whose goals match those of the IHF.

Publications

IHF publications, be they paper or electronic, will support and enhance the crossfertilization of evidence-based management practices. They will, through the promotion of dialogue, contribute significantly to improving management and operations of health organizations. The featured articles, statements, Q & As and advertisements, will aim to stimulate the exchange of ideas within and between the public and corporate sectors. These actions will improve and enhance our image and also provide the potential of increased revenue for the IHF. IHF will, through its publications, endeavour to embrace and convey its mission objective to improve and raise the levels and quality of patient care irrespective of the level of development within its members. Published articles will cover issues relevent to the entire membership and will range from sophisticated management healthcare techniques to more fundamental ones.

Events

Events will be organized and located so that IHF will be present in some manner, in all regions of the world at least every second year. These events will be coordinated with events organised by Regional Organisations. The subject focus of each of these events will be tailored to address the needs of the host Region, thereby enabling the IHF to contribute to regional management development as well as establishing a presence in the area. These regionally-hosted events (Pan-Regional or others) will be supported by the Biennial Congress, IHF's primary event. The aim will be to ensure that this rotates from region to region in accordance with criteria agreed by the Governing Council. Events will also provide both a forum and meeting place for public and corporate actors. Finally, they will provide a significant source of revenue generation for the IHF.

IHF will take care that all events fall within the broad scope of IHF's interests. When we discuss future events with potential partners and hosts we will ensure that there is a significant correlation between the event and IHF's goals as included in this mission statement.

Projects

Another tool, in particular in reaching out to poor countries, but also in general outreach, is the participation by IHF members and secretariat in international projects focusing on topics of concern enveloped within IHF's overall vision. These projects will, through external funding, contribute to an increase in skills and manpower at the IHF secretariat as well as stimulating networking between members, other NGOs and Governmental organizations such as WHO. Priority will be given to projects that assist low income countries to develop their health services.

Administration and governance

This statement and accompanying action plan will cover the next three years. More detailed operational targets will be developed upon endorsement of thevision statement and business plan and will accompany the plan to allow members to measure and assess organisational performance.

The aims and objectives outlined in the vision statement and business plan, are set within the context of IHF's financial history, which was fragile, prior to recent introduction of contracts for events as well as for publications, whereby guaranteed and fixed revenue have been secured. IHF has worked hard to identify partners including commercial entities which have common goals and has increasingly and steadily worked on shared products. The direct and active support from its members and Governing Council is essential if the vision is to be delivered.

We have significantly improved the quality and revenue of our publications, which now constitute about a quarter of the Federation's overall turnover.

Historically our performance in developing countries has not been as good as we would have wished but we have already been able, in spite of limited funding, to improve our presence in this part of the world through participation in events and projects.

If we are to deliver the vision there is a need for additional skills and manpower within the IHF Secretariat. Current staff work hard and well but we need to complement present skills with, for example, an additional staff member with a health policy and health economy background. We will aim to make such an appointment within the next few years and we will need the acitve support of members to achieve this important step, maybe through their sponsorship and/or placement of a suitable person.

There have been some important achievements over the last few years, in particular, the investment in new offices in Ferney-Voltaire (France). This willultimately reduce the running expenses of the secretariat as well as allowing us to establish closer working relations with other international organizations located in the greater Geneva area including the World Health Organisation. Another positive outcome of this has been the recruitment of high quality new staff whilst at the same time retaining the most essential staff from the previous location in London.

Activities and principal budget allocation

In order to implement the IHF Mission, Vision, Busines Plan and Activities, the IHF Governing Council and the IHF Secretariat will aim at a distribution of manpower and resources that will maximize outcomes for the forthcoming 3 years 2006-2008. This means a redistribution of available resources from publications and membership to projects that are in line with the overall vision. This will give us the ability to allocate manpower and resources to areas that are prioritized :

- Focus on developing and developed countries and communities.
- Promote exchange of information on evidence based management.
- Focus patient safety and quality of care.
- Promote international partnership.
- Stimulate interaction between health services and the commercial sector.
- Utilize events, publications, networking and projects.
- Assist in developing new hospital associations and promote interaction between members.
- Promote best pratice and ethical behaviour.

Vision - Summary

Our vision is a world of healthy communities served by well managed hospitals and health services where all individuals reach their highest potential for health.