From 20 to 23 November 2019, Marseille (France) hosted the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) conference.

This 12the edition was held under the title: “Building bridges for solidarity and public health” and gathered the European professional and scientific Public Health community. Public health professionals are a very diverse community and building bridges with professionals from other areas of society in the fields of food, transport, social services, the environment or others becomes both a challenge and a shared practice. The Marseille conference allowed to build new communication pathways between professionals in different areas and seek solutions to the challenges that healthcare systems are currently facing.

The Scirocco Exchange project, with the participation of Kronikgune, held two thematic workshops. The project seeks to adopt and scale-up integrated care through a personalised transfer of knowledge and planning improvements for healthcare systems. It aims to support healthcare and social welfare authorities in this process, facilitating access to evidence and tools for the implementation of integrated care.

The main goal of the first workshop “Capacity-building for implementing integrated care”, was assessing the local maturity and capacity levels to implement integrated care in two European regions: Scotland and the Basque Country. Kronikgune presented the Basque model for the integration in the Integrated Healthcare Organisations (IHO) and their functional integration supported on the coordination between primary and hospital care, the design of clinical pathways, polypharmaceutical management and social and healthcare coordination. Similarly, it showcased the focus and maturity of integrated care in the Basque Country through a self-assessment using the “Scirocco tool” by a multidisciplinary team formed by health professionals from different areas. It is relevant to highlight the interest created among the attendees regarding the tool as a valid instrument to self-assess other systems in regards to the adoption of integrated care.

In another workshop under the title “SCIROCCO: a tool for accelerating the adoption of integrated care”, Kronikgune presented Twinning and Coaching efforts developed by the Basque Country in the regions of Scotland and Sweden. Specifically, the presentation focused on the experience of the Basque Country after visiting Scotland to learn how they have involved the third social sector in the provision of integrated care.

For further information on the project, please click on the following link: https://www.sciroccoexchange.com/