On 3rd December 2013, different stakeholders of the healthcare system including nurses, social workers, doctors, patients, citizens, researchers and industry met in Warsaw for the kick-off meeting of the ENS4Care project, with the ambition of developing together evidence based guidelines on eHealth services for nursing and social care.
Although most of the stakeholders met yesterday for the first time, the dynamism, creativity and commitment to work together in designing guidelines in the fields of prevention, clinical practice, advanced roles and ePrescribing was highly felt. The innovative approach to build guidance on what already exists and then upscale it towards a European consensus has been proven to be the right way to support politicians and policy-makers when designing policies for the health and social care system reform. Patient safety, quality of care and accessibility to integrated care services, next to patient empowerment and cost-effectiveness, are the key drivers of ENS4Care. As the outcomes of the project will have an impact on the future workforce using eHealth services, the involvement of the students in the project is essential. Within the context of workforce, gender has been given special attention through the Leaders of the different Work Packages, next to the involvement of several organisations such as 1.6&2.6 Million Club, the European Institute of Women’s Health and Active Citizenship.
Yesterday, the milestones that will give direction to this two-year project were settled and partners showed their enthusiasm and commitment to bring forward the evidence that will support health and social care workforce in enhancing quality in integrated care through the use of eHealth services.
