What do doctors need to know? Obviously a lot. And building the right curricula for doctors is one of the core functions of medical schools across the globe. Science, experience, technology, demographics, and climate too change over time. So must the curricula for doctors.

This is the background for the conference of AMSE2024 with theme of “Educating for patient-centred and community-engaged healthcare”.

Held by AMSE, The Association of Medical Schools in Europe and organized by the School of Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Thessaloniki , Greece, on 17-19 October 2024, NWA was present to contribute with a presentation on the urgency of medical schools to also include elements about wellbeing economy.

We also had the great opportunity to meet with the amazing team at PsyLab at the Institute for Applied Bioscience at CERTH – so many exciting possibilities in and from their multidisciplinary approach to digital development and the future of health technology.

With project partners in Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Hungary, NWA was excited to join the kick off meeting in Limoges, France for the MentaStress project: Empowering First Responders for Better Mental Health in Crisis Situations.

The project is an innovative EU-wide initiative designed to both enhance first responders’  efficiency in emergencies and to support their mental well-being before and after.

The project will develop learning materials based on real life crisis events, and a multilingual platform to support the first responders and raise awareness. We will also explore and build augmented reality tools to create immersive stress-management training for first responders and carry out training in five EU countries to validate tools and content. This will help us build a comprehensive stress management guide.

MentaStress connects 9 partners across 7 EU countries, spans over 24 months and includes pilot programs, research, events, and seminars, creating an inclusive platform that targets broad engagement and sustainability.

We aim to shape policies in crisis management and mental health at both the national and EU levels. By fostering cross-sector cooperation, MentaStress will offer scalable and transferable training solutions, improving crisis response and mental health support for first responders and the community.

Smart Health Age-Friendly Environments are the purpose of the SHAFE Foundation. NWA has the great honour of participating in the EU Week for Sustainable and Inclusive Communities: the future is SHAFE – taking place October 1-3, 2024.

NWA participated with a presentation on “Looking at the future: health and wellbeing European citizens” and talk about trust, accountability and KPIs, about cross-sector collaboration, and about horizon scanning as a tool for strategy and progress.

Read more at the event site here – or read about the SHAFE Foundation here and their amazing work explore and promote age-friendly progress in Europe.

The Future of Trust? NWA participated in the Tour de Health 2024 organised by Healthcare Denmark to present its work on establishing a KPI model to assess quality and progress in multistakeholder partnerships, especially for mission-driven ones.

The Tour de Health 2024 gathered health care and life science stakeholders from 13 diplomatic missions in Copenhagen to learn from Danish experiences and share their own in trying to work with complex issues in the some times challenging world multistakeholder platforms. The event was a great opportunity to also dive deep into the issue of trust and transformation with both Danish Life Science Cluster community partners (Nordic Healthcare Group, Novo Nordisk, and Lundbeck) and also global partners (Global Health Literacy Academy), trans-Atlantic (Engage Nova Scotia), European (EUREGHA), and Danish (Prescient).

It also gave a good opportunity for further dialogue about the nature of collaboration – gathering also feedback from Canadian Ambassador Carolyn Bennet, Head of Impact at Novo Nordisk Foundation Thomas Alslev Christensen, Professor at the University of Copenhagen Maria Kristiansen, Country Director Denmark Johnson & Johnson Julie Brooker, and Deputy CEO Rigshospitalet Martin Magelund Rasmussen. Find all of the videos here.

The theme of EHFG 2024 was the shifting sands of health – a core challenge for health and wellbeing in Europe is the ever shifting strategic interests of health in both the Member States and in the EU.

The policy forum in Gastein offers a unique opportunity to connect with organisations and policy makers – check out both recordings, presentations, themes, photos and more at ehfg.org

NWA participated in both networking events and facilitated both workshop session environmental determinants for health in EU policy – and also helped crowd source input on ideation for Commission and Parliament on future health policy.