Going from Aalborg and the EU Presidency to Tallinn and the WHO – Future Health Workforce is key to the discussion. NWA participated with Nina Sønderberg and Lars Münter, where Lars Münter was invited to the session to address different policy-level aspects crucial for building sustainable health workforces in a digital age.

This included:

• Enablers of high quality, safe and inclusive digital health environments
• Service design that enables integrated care delivery across heterogenous care environment
• Roles and responsibilities in a future health workforce and pathways to achieving them
• Applying ethics and accountability in AI-driven healthcare environments
• Effective regulatory frameworks

Presenting alongside Kjersti GAUDEN, Department of Specialist Health Care Services, Ministry of Health Norway, Heidi Egede NOASEN, Greenlandic Health Service Greenland, and Deborah Cohen, Chief Operating Officer, Health Workforce Canada, Lars Münter presented on skills, burnout, AI, and trust – as four pillars for collaborative strategies.

Such a pleasure to revisit Tallinn for NWA – and to advance the discussion on these core topics.

Mental health is an urgent issue across every country and society. So it was a great learning experience for us – and both fun, tough, challenging, and rewarding for the professionals and families from Kazakhstan to be able to participate in the 33rd edition of the summer school for phychoanalysis, organised the School of Psychoanalysis in Almaty.

NWA contributed with two lectures and two workshops that allowed the participants to learn more about the psychosomatic symptoms of trauma, about building blocks for creating strategies for mental health and mental health literacy, about emotion-focused therapy individual, group, and organisational practice – and about experiences of improving mental resilience for both frontline workers (of all kinds).

We got to both draw upon work in Europe with both ISRICM-EU about helping vulnerable groups and MentaStress mental training, with WHO Europe and the Strategic Partner’s Initiative for Data and Digital Health on burnout, with ISEFT about professional capacity building – and learned so much about new ways to build mental health literacy in such a diverse group in age, background, history, and more.

We look forward to visit this amazing country and culture again – there are so much to share and combine.

The European University of Cyprus and the Cyprus Medical Association has developed a high-level and target forum for both knowledge sharing and informal dialogue about cutting edge health technology and clinical discoveries that can improve health.

NWA was invited to present our work in the Nordic Health 2030 Movement and also the latest development of a model for assessment of multipartner collaboration framework for the Danish Life Science Cluster. This took place as part of a dedicated session one personalised medicine, organised by the Cambridge Medical Academy.

Held in Nicosia, Cyprus, 7-9 November 2024, the 12th IMBMC international congress event also allowed NWA to see the vibrant atmosphere in the last divided city in Europe – and both the challenge and potential of joint collaboration for a prosperous future for all. The alternative – or the cost of inaction – is enourmous.

Mental health – stress management for first responders through augmented reality in disasters

As a new experience, we’ll be part of a French-led consortium to explore better pathways towards mental health in a very challenging workplace – disaster, accidents, and crisis. With 8 other partners from France, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Spain, we’ll be able from 2024-2026 to not just explore and develop better practices, but also integrate new technology for relief, awareness, management, and possibly rehabilitation in the MentaStress project.

Our project will look nothing like the image of minions – but like them, we humans are simply trying to do our best in challenging circumstances.  We’ll be back with more asap.

NESEI – Network of European Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators launched!

NWA participated in a great event in Brussels April 2024 to connect organisations, minds, and ideas on social progress. More to come from the network – read more (and join!) here.

In 2023 we began considering how different uses of the Erasmus+ framework might be a method to share Danish experiences across borders and facilitating knowledge sharing between sectors and silos.

The Erasmus+ programme enables thousands of projects for professional knowledge sharing, but also enable interpersonal upskilling. Read more about the almost endless possibilities, results, and tools here.

We will be trying to explore new ideas, given our previous experience from projects like:
Dem@Mentoring (supporting informal carers for people with dementia)
ECARIS (supporting informal carers for kidney patients)
RECADE (building a guide for rehabilitiation)
Art4Me (exploring uses of art and creativity for mental health)
INFOCARE (exploring digital support for people with dementia)
Well@SME (building a digital platform to support mental health at SME workplaces)
eHealth4Cancer (exploring digital tools for cancer support)

In 2023 EuroHealthNet organised a debate during the WHO 7th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Budapest. The conference connected ministries and organisations across Europe – indeed globally – to discuss the important interaction of environmental changes on health and health systems; but vice versa also the important impact and potential the health systems have for environment and the policies that connect the two areas.

Lars Münter represented Danish and Nordic ideas from his work in the Danish Committee for Health Education, the Danish Council for Better Hygiene, the Self-Care in Europe Initiative, and the Nordic Health 2030 Movement.

Read more about the conference here.