The IFHE-Europe Congress for Hospital Engineering 2015, themed ‘Better productivity in healthcare with technology’, was held from 2-5 June in Turku on Finland’s south-west coast, hosted and organised by the Association of Finnish Hospital Engineering, SSTY, assisted and facilitated by the University of Turku.
Around 600 delegates attended – from as far afield as Australia, North and South America, and South Africa – while some 100 companies showcased products and services. David Whiteley, IHEEM’s representative to IFHE Europe, an IHEEM Fellow, and a member of the Institute’s International Technical Platform, who attended, reports.
“The event venue for the 2015 IFHE-EU Congress, ‘Logomo’, is close to Turku’s railway station, sited at the point where train engines used to turn around on an engine turntable, which is still there. The old railway-themed facility was turned into a conference, exhibition, concert, and business centre, as part of Turku’s successful bid to be the European City of Culture in 2011, and indeed much of the programme organised for ‘the accompanying persons’ was geared around exploring Turku’s cultural heritage via a historical walking tour, and visits to museums and galleries along the city’s riverside.
“Over the conference’s two days, the Congress saw three parallel sessions run, two in English, and the other in Finnish. All the keynote and plenary sessions were conducted in English.”
The presentations were grouped together under the broad topic areas:
- Economic, i.e. how to keep costs, quality, and productivity, ‘in balance’;
- Organisations and processes – ‘how to harness technology and new innovations to increase productivity, efficiency, and quality, in hospitals’;
- Architecture and design – covering ‘new ways to make contract agreements to build better and cheaper hospitals’;
- Electricity and communication, for instance focusing on hospitals’ electrical power ‘independence’ from public power systems, and examining ‘capacity and solutions’;
- Medical engineering;
- Building maintenance – focusing on environmental and energy savings, and considering topics such as recycling to reduce waste.
Similar challenges across Europe
“The underlying theme,” David Whiteley explained, “was that all healthcare systems across Europe face similar challenges – with rising demand and expectations outstripping supply capability etc., and that we all can learn something from each other. This theme was endorsed and explained in more local contexts by a number of the keynote speakers, including the former Finnish Prime Minister, Esko Aho, who spoke on ‘How to achieve better productivity in healthcare’.
“I was the IHEEM representative, and the only UK speaker, and presented on Dutch company IMS Medical’s development for the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam – one of the Netherlands’ university hospitals – of a patented robotic bed washing system.” The new system reportedly ‘disinfects the beds in a conveyor belt format, similar to the set-up employed by car manufacturers’. Following its installation, the Erasmus Medical Centre is aiming to reduce its cleaning costs per bed by 35 per cent, and its ‘CO2 footprint’ by 65 per cent.
“My presentation explained that, annually, around 70,000 beds have to be washed at the Erasmus MC, a figure expected to rise. The hospital’s existing bedwashing machine is labour-intensive, and consumes large volumes of water and energy. The project team identified a need for ‘a sustainable, low carbon solution to deliver 70,000 clean beds and mattresses per year’.”
European Commission financed project
Financed via EcoQUIP, a European Commission-funded initiative that aims to demonstrate ‘that new approaches to procurement can deliver efficiency, quality, and sustainability, in the healthcare sector’, the bed washer project saw the Erasmus Medical Centre partner with the UK’s Department of Health and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust; Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust; Bologna University Authority – St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic; Sucha Beskidzka Hospital; Semmelweis University Health Services Management Training Centre; European Health Property Network; Heath Care Without Harm Europe; Optimat, and JERA Consulting. The bedwashing system won the European Commission’s 2015 Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) award.
The IFHE-EU Congress ran alongside the SSTY Congress and Exhibition. It was preceded by the IFHE ‘ExCo’ meeting on 31 May, and the IFHE Council meeting on 1 June, with post-Congress technical visits to various local hospital installations taking place on 5 June. A full social programme included a ‘get-together party’, a gala dinner at Turku Castle, and a closing party.
“The whole event proved a very interesting and highly successful Congress, well organised by SSTY and Turku University, and well supported by the exhibitors,” said David Whiteley. “It left delegates looking forward to next year’s IFHE World Congress, to be hosted by the NVTG in The Hague.”
The full IFHE-EU Congress programme, topics discussed, speaker list, and the presentations, are available at: http://www.eche2015.fi/presentations.php
To access the website, enter user name: IFHE2015; password: PresentationsIFHE
