e-Hospital4Future

International conference at Paula Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital Showcases Future of Digital Healthcare

Riga, Latvia, September 27-18 2024

[Photos by Kaspars Teilans]

On September 17 and 18, 2024, the Paula Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital hosted the international conference “Innovations and Digital Technologies in Healthcare.” This event was part of the European Union Health Program project e-Hospital4Future. 

Leading European specialists in digital health and Latvian experts presented training programs on digital healthcare solutions and innovative treatments.

Showcasing training modules

As part of the e-Hospital4Future project, 19 training modules have been developed for online and face-to-face training for medical professionals. These modules were created through the collaboration of European universities, technology centres, and hospitals from eight countries.

Data-Driven Healthcare was the focus of the opening presentation, given by Project coordinator Ana Maria Madureira, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (Portugal)

Evidence Based Nursing By Using AI was one of the topics. Here presented by João Carlos Ferreira, Høgskolen I Molde (Norway).

Experts from Belgium, Norway, Portugal, and Latvia provided insights into the curriculum, covering a wide range of topics such as how to better deal with stress and digital change, AI in nursing, Virtual Reality, and hands-on procedures of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. 

10 talks in 2 days

The conference featured

• 7 presentations on digital solutions in healthcare.
• 3 presentations on innovative treatment methods and personal skills for healthcare personnel.

Participants

• Representatives from state health institutions (Ministry of Health and other state health bodies).
• Specialists from hospitals and outpatient facilities, administrative representatives, and association members.
• Medical staff, residents, nurses, medical students, and other interested parties.

Key statements

“I am honoured to present the training programs developed within the project to Latvian healthcare specialists, technology experts, and other interested parties. The conference provided an opportunity to showcase our work and establish promising potential partnerships in Latvia for future projects,” said Ana Maria Madureira, Project Manager for the e-Hospital4Future project.

Ilze Āboliņa, Head of the Education Department at the Scientific Institute of Paula Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital, added:

“This is a great opportunity for Latvia and Stradiņš Hospital to contribute to a large-scale European project aimed at creating continuing education programs for healthcare workers, with a focus on digital tools and the targeted use of artificial intelligence.”

Full Conference Programme

Healthcare Processes Based on Innovations and Digital Technologies, e-Hospital4Future

17 September, 2024

09:00 Data-Driven Healthcare

Ana Maria Madureira, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (Portugal)

10:30 Emotional Intelligence And Stress Management

Janita Veinberga, Paula Stradiņa klīniskā universitātes slimnīca (Latvia)

11:30 Patient Triage Based On The Support Of Digital Tools

Luis Jose Marte Fernandez, Eurecat (Spain)

14:00 Evidence-Based Nursing By Using AI

João Carlos Ferreira, Høgskolen i Molde (Norway)

15:30 Patient Safety

Berit Helgheim, Høgskolen I Molde (Norway)

18 September, 2024

09:00 Optimizing Digital Acceptance In Resistant Healthcare Professionals

Hanne Westhovens Hogeschool PXL (Belgium)

11:00 Short Introduction Emerging AI/Mixed Reality/Simulation Use In Health Care In Specialized Medicine

Joachim Gregoor, Hogeschool PXL (Belgium)

13:00 Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation: Evolution, Teamwork, And Methodology

Edgars Prozorovskis, Katrīna Rutka, Paula Stradiņa klīniskā universitātes slimnīca (Latvia)

14:30 Digital Governance

Luis Lapao, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)

16:00 Digitization Of Management Processes And Innovations In Daily Processes

Justs Dimants, Paula Stradiņa klīniskā universitātes slimnīca (Latvia)

A big thank you to everyone who made this conference possible from the project team!

Project Funding

The European Union’s Health Program (2021 – 2027) finances the project. Project “Building Future Through an Innovative and Digitally Skilled Hospital,” No. 101101190.

Porto, Portugal, June 25-27 2024

IEEE MELECON 2024 was a hub of innovation and collaboration, and we're very happy to be invited to present and gather insight. IEEE Melecon is a major international forum presenting design methodologies, techniques, and experimental results in emerging electro-technologies. It is one of the flagship conferences of the IEEE Region 8 - the largest region of IEEE including Europe, Africa, and Middle East.

Lively discussions

Our workshop titled "e-Hospital4Future - Building the Future through an Innovative and Digitally Skilled Hospital", led by Susana Nicola, Alexandre Gouveia, Ana Madureira, and Nuno Bettencourt, sparked lively discussions and productive group work.

Joachim Gregoor from Hogeschool PXL also contributed significantly by sharing his experiences teaching Emerging AI, Mixed Reality, and Simulation Use in Health Care at Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Santo António.

From left to right: Alexandre Gouveia (ISEP), Susana Nicola (ISEP), João Ferreira (HiMolde), Ana Madureira (ISEP), Joachim Gregoor (PXL) and Luís Elvas (HiMolde).

Collaborative methodology

The success of the workshop was largely due to the interactive group work. Using an adapted "Think, Pair, Share" method, participants were able to engage deeply with the project's activities, leading to a flow of suggestions, questions, and future ideas. The workshop concluded with a fun and engaging Kahoot! quiz, testing participants' knowledge of the project and its modules.

The event was a resounding success, thanks to the enthusiastic participation and the insightful contributions from all attendees.

Thank you to IEEE for hosting us, and to everyone who joined the workshop!

Molde, Norway, June 24, 2024

Feedback from both clinical and non-clinical staff about the workshops and training sessions conducted in Latvia, Portugal, and Norway has been collected.

In the "AI4Nurses" workshop held in Norway, 41 dedicated nurses participated and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.The nurses expressed a need for more practical training and less emphasis on the technical aspects of digital technologies.



"- Nurses have clearly expressed a desire for more practical training and less focus on technical aspects of digital technologies. We take this feedback seriously and will integrate it into all training modules. The goal of the pilot studies is to acquire knowledge and make necessary adjustments based on participant feedback. This is important to tailor the courses as effectively as possible to the target audience," says Berit Irene Helgheim, Associate Professor of Logistics at Molde University College.

Thank you to everyone who shared their feedback. 

Hasselt, Belgium, May 28, 2024

From left to right: Roald Nelissen (head of department PXL Healthcare), Els Knippenberg (researcher care innovation), Isabel Kortleven (researcher care innovation), Ana Madureira (project leader), Kim Daniels (head of Care Innovation), Bruno Van Koeckhoven (EU Research Affairs Manager), Jan Dello (researcher Centre Digital Learning) and Joachim Gregoor (researcher care innovation)

The Health Innovation Festival at Hogeschool PXL aimed to introduce research to educators and professionals in the field. The International Research Day was a great place to share and learn from each other during the festival.

Project leader Ana Madureira delivered an outstanding session on the e-Hospital4Future project, providing insights on how to start and lead such a significant European initiative. Various groups engaged interactively throughout the afternoon to learn more about the project and its potential benefits.

Thank you to everyone who attended and made the International Research Day and the Health Innovation Festival a success!

The e-Hospital4Future project aims to create innovative training modules for healthcare professionals in hospital settings.

The focus of e-Hospital4Future is to enhance the education process of health professionals by integrating social skills, technical skills, and digital skills modules.

We're delighted to announce that the eHealth4Future EU co-funded project has reached its one-year milestone with a successful second in-person transnational meeting held in Barcelona.

During this meeting, we engaged in fruitful discussions regarding the future of our project and had the opportunity to showcase the progress we have made thus far.

Our team has been diligently working on developing pilot programs, and we're thrilled to share that more than 70 dedicated healthcare professionals have actively participated and provided invaluable feedback.

Their input has played a significant role in shaping our project's trajectory.

Currently, we are in the process of finalizing 19 courses. These courses aim to assist healthcare professionals in embracing digital solutions to enhance patient outcomes.

We are all excited about the potential impact this project can have in transforming the field of health.

If you are interested in learning more about our project or wish to get involved, please do not hesitate to reach out and connect.

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#HealthUnion #EU4Health

The consortium consists of

ISEP - Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto

Eurecat

Høgskolen i Molde

@Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Paula Stradiņa Klīniskā universitātes slimnīca

Hogeschool PXLXL

Vilniaus universitetas / Vilnius University Santaros Klinikos

Nastavni zavod za javno zdravstvo PGŽ

Riga, Latvia, March 19

In a significant step toward enhancing critical care, specialists at Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital hosted a pioneering training course titled "Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation: Evolution, Teamwork, and Methodology.” 

This comprehensive program aims to equip Latvian medical specialists with the skills necessary to provide life-saving ECMO support. 

“- Our goal is patient-centred care and safety. ECMO is a team effort,” says Dr Katrina Rutka at Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital. 

ECMO Essentials: From Teamwork to Troubleshooting 

When hearts falter and lungs fail, ECMO steps in. Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a method of life support, has gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The procedure involves circulating blood outside the body through a membrane oxygenator, providing oxygenation when cardiac or respiratory function is compromised.  

The COVID-19 pandemic proved that ECMO procedures can succeed highly in selected patient groups. 

Trainer team and Participants 

The training author team consisted of Dr. Edgar Prozorovskis, Dr. Katrina Rutka, and Prof. Robertas Samalavicius.  

The training course, conducted both online and on-site, caters to a multi-professional audience. 

Participants include anesthesiologists, intensive care specialists, cardiac and vascular surgeons, cardiologists, perfusionists, intensive care nurses, lung disease specialists, physiotherapists, and rehabilitation experts.  

Impact of the ECMO Training

The ECMO training course equips Latvian medical specialists with essential skills for providing life-saving support. Participants learn about team dynamics, equipment, patient selection, and managing complications. This collaborative effort promises improved patient care and safety.  

Porto, Portugal, January 13, 2024

The e-Hospital4Future team in Porto, Portugal have launched a new course module focusing on using data to improve healthcare. 

This project aims to use advanced data science techniques to analyze healthcare information, which could greatly benefit patient care.

“- This project is all about using data to improve healthcare. We’re looking at how we can use the latest data science methods to understand healthcare data better,” said Ivone Silva, Work package leader at Centro Hospitalar Universitario Do Porto EPE (CHUdSA).

The project covers several vital areas.

• Cleaning and Preparing Data: The team works on fixing issues like missing or incomplete data and prepares both structured and unstructured healthcare data for analysis.
• Visualizing Data: They create charts, graphs, and maps to help understand large and complex datasets, revealing important patterns and insights.
• Data Mining and Machine Learning: The team uses different learning techniques to find hidden relationships and patterns in healthcare data, focusing on classification and clustering.
• Predictive Modeling: The project builds models to predict future health outcomes based on past data, which could significantly improve patient care.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP): The team uses NLP to extract valuable information from unstructured data, like text from electronic health records, opening up new possibilities for personalized medicine.
• Ethics and Privacy: The team ensures they follow ethical guidelines and regulations, such as HIPAA and GDPR when handling healthcare data.

This project is a big step forward in using data science to improve healthcare, aiming to make patient care better and more efficient.

On October 17th, 2023, at the Altice Forum, in Braga (Portugal), an event on the European Commission's Direct Management Programmes took place: "What funding in the 2022-2027 cycle?", so the various sources of funding available for the coming years were presented. In this sense, in session I: Competitiveness, Technology and Innovation, the EU4Health Programme was presented by Dr. Inês Tavares Ferreira from SGMS, where the balance of Action Grants that obtained funding in 2021/2022 and that have the involvement of Portuguese partners was also presented. Of the 22 approved proposals, the Portuguese partners obtained about 5M€ in funding, where the e-Hospital4future project leads with about 1M€ obtained, about 20% of the funding obtained for Portugal! In addition, the project led by ISEP is one of the 3 projects that has Portuguese leadership, which demonstrates the ability to manage and administer consortia of a highly demanding program, such as EU4Health. Finally, it is also important to highlight that the e-Hospital4Future project was also the project chosen by SGMS to be presented during the event.  

The #e-Hospital4Future# - Building future through an innovated and digital skilled hospital project, which intends to elevate the education process of health professionals (clinical and non-clinical), combining modules of social skills (soft skills), technical skills (hard skills) and digital skills.

The project is led by Professor Ana Madureira and will be carried out by a multidisciplinary consortium of 8 institutions from 6 European countries: ISEP (Coordination, Portugal), UNL (Portugal), PXL (Belgium), EURECAT (Spain), UNINA (Italy),  HiMolde (Norway), CHUSA (Portugal) and PSKUS (Latvia).

The #e-Hospital4Future Kick-off meeting took place on March 28th at ISEP, with the participation of all partners.

For more information please follow 👉 https://isep.ipp.pt/New/ViewNew/6838

#HealthUnion #EU4Health #ISEP #Porto #DigitalSkills

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