President's Message
November 2009 Message from IHF President: Provide a Health service that meets the needs of the population is a common concern of all countries, governments, managers, institutions and Health professionals. In the search for increased quality care, increase - which has become a fundamental requirement for success - access, costs and preparation of the professionals have also drawn the attention of players from all over the world. After the world economical crisis, which, according to economists and financial analysts, is believed to be over, the health sector has also found ways of reducing wastes without sacrificing quality. A French author says that "Health is priceless, but medicine has costs". This is a true assumption and it is therefore necessary to adopt new management strategies, such as illness prevention and the transformation of hospital installations according to environmentalist tendencies - green hospitals, for example - taking institutions forward to a healthy economy, for both patients and establishments, providing sustainability to services and health. We can observe the need to undertake work specifically related to illness prevention, with regards in particular to the male population. In Brazil, for example, the Ministry of Health has just launched a national awareness health campaign for men, the aim of which is to persuade men to care more for themselves, to seek healthier life habits and undergo regular medical examinations so as to eliminate potential for disease outbreak, or aggravate existing conditions. The task of convincing the population that health service authorities alone are not responsible for matters of health, can be difficult and produces medium and long term outcomes. The solution should lie in raising the level of health consciousness as well as introduction of other initiatives. The health system adopted by a country can directly reflect the services delivered to the population. Access to the system, health policies and coverage levels will be defined by the applied model. Given the importance of this decision, it is easily understandable that some countries are being led to review their health models. Discussions in Europe are focused on ways to adapt hospitals in order to address healthcare of foreign patients resident in the region. Cultural and linguistic diversity present many challenges to health services. These issues reinforce the idea that these exchanges of experiences with other countries indicate ways in which to solve common problems in health. Each region, of course, has also specific problems, but the added knowledge from external information, contributes to formulation of new strategies and ideas which can be taken, adopted and adapted in different systems, providing distinct results. Following this line of thought, we will have the privilege to reunite, in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, between November 10-12, hospital administrators, government authorities, leaders, health professionals and organizations and physicists on the IHF 36th World Hospital Congress - IHF RIO 2009, under the central theme "Health in the Knowledge Era". The aim is to meet an actual demand, which deals with new technologies, the information expansion and its impact on health decisions, the formation of the sector policies and relationships between the various health sector players. Our expectation is that the reality of health sector activities will be openly discussed, and the exchange of experiences would result in changes in attitude, in order to improve management and the way the needs and wishes of patients are responded to. We hope, therefore, that the 36th IHF World Hospital Congress will be a forum to add knowledge, develop useful networking and, provide better healthcare for everybody. Brazil in the Knowledge Era The Brazilian expectation for the IHF RIO 2009, is that cooperation will be encouraged and that there will be an exchange of experiences between managers within the medical-healthcare arena. The event, it is hoped, will be about seeking health management improvement at all levels. The Brazilian Government itself has been investing in new technologies and is using the internet to inform the population and to meet the demands of the sector. An example is the structuring of the "Tele-Health" project, which was initiated in 2007 and aims to connect health professionals in remote areas to health reference centers. Brazil, as a huge country, encounters many difficulties in its provision of health services to rural communities. However, a total of 735 reference centers have been established in the country, which has enable professionals to communicate, particularly amongst those that under the "Family Health" programme, conduct family home visits, periodically. These professionals also have access to training and education courses, information exchange and assessment, in addition to receiving welfare on diseases diagnosis. Such services, previously, were only available in large urban centers. This initiative has stimulated the establishment of health professionals in more remote areas, avoiding the unnecessary displacement of patients. Between 2008 and 2009, the project increased by 180% and has done more than a thousand consultations. The Brazilian health system, with a 10% increase in coverage under the "Family Health" programme, has contributed to a reduction of 4,6% in infant mortality. The expectations of the Ministry of Health, is that the country will meet the Millennium Goal in 2012, three years before predicted. The Unified Health System (SUS) also has a network of emergency care - the Samu - that, in addition to offering rapid response, provides a network of call-out services that covers more than 101 million Brazilians of the 190 million population of Brazil. Brazilian Health policies also reinforce the fight against tobacco and have reduced the percentage of smokers in the country to 15%. They have also established an organ transplant system that is ranked 2nd in the world. Public-private partnerships have also allowed greater access to health services for the population. A large number of private hospitals are contracted by the Unified Health System to provide medical services, hospital and outpatient care, to public system users, beyond what is available in the Supplementary System. These institutions now have formal bonds with the Unified Health System through projects developing the evaluation and use of technology; human resources training; public research; and management in health services development. There is also a regulatory agency - National Supplementary Healthcare Agency (ANS) - an arm of the Brazilian health service, whose role is to monitor the quality of supplementary sector services, that provides treatment to 50 million patients. The supplementary system has discussed the use of digital medical records, an important tool to standardise Health information, to validate information exchanged between the regulatory agency, operators and service providers. The aim of this system is to reduce administrative costs in all sectors by eliminating processes and paperwork. The Confederação Nacional De Saúde, Hospitais, Estabelecimentos e Serviços (CNS) participated actively in these discussions and presented to the Agency a collection of all hospital procedures, compiled with the Brazilian Society of Computing (SBIs) Brazil is internationally recognized as a reference in the Health sector because of these and other initiatives of the Brazilian health model. The sector must be seen as an important leader in development, contributing to research, innovation, revenue and employment. The anticipated strong presence of international participants to the Congress confirms the interest in learning about and understanding the Brazilian experience. Brazil is always open to new initiatives. Dr Jose Carlos de Souza Abrahao |
