The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) describes health as being:
‘…created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life; where they learn, work, play and love. Health is created by caring for oneself and others, by being able to take decisions and have control over one’s life circumstances, and by ensuring that the society one lives in creates conditions that allow the attainment of health by all its members.’
With this vision of health in mind, the European Health Management Association (EHMA) defines health management as the practice that provides guidance and leadership to administer health at the individual, organisational and systemic level. Health management embraces a holistic vision of health, in which health is impacted by behavioural, social, and environmental determinants. Health management includes and goes beyond healthcare management, which comprises community, primary, secondary, and tertiary care provision. It also happens outside of care settings and builds synergy with other related policy and societal areas in line with the ‘One health’ concept. Health management encompasses the entire health ecosystem in which health managers collaborate with patients, informal and formal caregivers, patient organisations, legislators, educators, policy makers and regulators, public health experts, researchers, health insurance experts, and pharmaceutical industries. Together, they aim to create a clear health vision and alignment strategy, as well as lay down the organisational, societal and technological conditions to achieve optimal health outcomes for individual patients and the entire community. Health managers are jointly responsible for establishing effective and holistic governance structures, built on a co-design and co-production model.
Thus, the European Health Management Conference 2024 is structured around five tracks that reflect that holistic practice of health management and frame the lenses through which contemporary topics will be analysed and discussed. The tracks are:
- Governance, leadership and social responsibility – This track includes abstracts that are creating evidence and best practices on setting and overseeing strategic goals, as well leading successful health organisations and systems.
- Management, operations and practice – This track focuses on the operations of organisations and systems. It pays attention to evidence in the planning, organising, staffing, monitoring, directing, and decision-making processes of health services and systems to ensure the effective, efficient, and equitable use of resources.
- Human capital, professionalism and people management – This track focuses on how human resources are managed to support the delivery of health services. This includes challenges relating to optimal planning, personnel shortages, the post-COVID ‘great resignation’, remunerations and incentives, and competence building.
- Finance and economics – This track examines business planning and refers to how resources are raised, pooled, allocated or spent to ensure that people have access to health services of good quality without financial hardship. This includes abstracts related to efficiency, effectiveness, value and behaviours in the production and consumption of health and healthcare.
- Policy and regulations – This track focuses on the development, planning, implementation, and evaluation of policies/regulations affecting health management at the organisational, local, regional, national, and European levels.
These tracks were identified in consultation with our Board of Directors, our Scientific Advisory Committee, and our membership.
Have you carried out research that is relevant to these tracks? Share your results with the health management community at EHMA 2024!
Submit your abstract by Monday, 15 January 2024 at 10.00 (CET).
Check out the guidelines and submission form here: https://bit.ly/EHMA2024abstracts