Bad Hofgastein, August 2015– Six cutting-edge projects are in the running for the prestigious €10,000 European Health Award 2015, sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and FOPI, which brings together Austria’s research-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The winner will be chosen by a panel of leading health experts, and announced during the 18th EHFG Conference, being held in the Gastein Valley from the 30th September to 2nd October.
The European Health Award honours projects and initiatives aiming to improve public health or health care in Europe. Important criteria are that more than one European country should be involved in the project, it should show innovation and be sustainable, and that the results are transferable to other states and address a significant health threat that directly benefits a substantial portion of the population or relatively large patient groups.
“The point of this award is to promote intelligent and effective initiatives and encourage the development of projects that lend themselves to effective trans-national cooperation,” Prof Helmut Brand, President of the International Forum Gastein, said. “At this year’s EHFG we will be discussing topics such as sustainable health systems and health security, including health threat responses, European development aid and health policy development. We will reflect again on the overarching question on how to maintain and improve the health of European citizens. The European Health Award contributes to this theme by rewarding and highlighting projects that are sustainable, innovative, multi-country and breaking new boundaries in their attempts to improve health in Europe.”
Last year’s award went to the EpiSouth Plus Project, which is aimed at increasing health security in the Mediterranean Area and Balkans by enhancing preparedness to threats, which can affect health security, and to bio-security risks at national/regional levels in the framework of International Health Regulation implementation.
The 2015 short-list in detail:
Health with Migrants for Migrants in Europe
The project “Health with Migrants for Migrants in Europe” (MiMi) is improving migrants’ and refugees’ access to health services by increasing their health literacy and capacity building. MiMi´s key technology for social inclusion includes executive education for intercultural mediators, health campaigns in migrant communities, multilingual health guides to explain health systems, related health topics or healthy life styles, networking and evaluation.
Participating countries: Germany, Austria
ProYouth Initiative
The ProYouth initiative aims at the enhancement of the mental health of adolescents and young adults via an Internet-based programme (the “ProYouth online portal”). This online portal was designed to give young people access to evidence-based health promotion material and online support tools that enable them to identify (through online screening) and treat (via online counsellors & peer-to-peer chat rooms) eating disorders related to mental health problems.
Participating countries: Germany, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, France, Turkey
Examination of the policy-making process behind the adoption of the European Patients‘ Rights Directive, 2011/24/EU and its subsequent implementation in selected member states
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The project examines the policy-making process behind the adoption of the European Patients‘ Rights Directive, 2011/24/EU and its subsequent implementation in selected member states. The project combines a focus on the inter-institutional, judicial and political dynamics of European Union (EU) policy-making with comparative research on national implementation processes.
Participating countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria
KSYOS TeleMedical Centre
KSYOS TeleMedical Centre, as an SME, is the first health centre solely delivering health services by means of TeleMedicine, therefore also referred to as virtual hospital. Over 7.000 contracted KSYOS health workers have given quicker and better care at lower costs to over 300.000 patients in somatic fields as well as in eMental health.
Participating countries: Netherlands, United Kingdom, Norway, France, Spain and Switzerland
Cross-border care for children with psychiatric disorders
The project “Cross-border care for children with psychiatric disorders” is first benefit obligation in health care between a German clinic (Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Aachen) and a foreign country (German-speaking Community of Belgium). It provides a cross-border inpatient treatment opportunity in mother tongue for German-speaking Belgian children with psychiatric disorders.
Participating countries: Germany and the German speaking community of Belgium
Nutrition and Physical Activity without Borders
In the “Nutrition and Physical Activity without Borders” research project we identify successful health promotion factors (new teaching and learning methods and materials) for developing intercultural skills in promoting nutrition and physical activity among target groups both inside and outside schools.
Participating countries: Denmark and Germany