Welcome

Welcome to Turku in June!
The association of Finnish Hospital Engineering

The 6th European Congress for Hospital Engineering

The European Congress for Hospital Engineering (ECHE) is the bi-annual congress of IFHE Europe, the European branch of the International Federation of Hospital Engineering (IFHE), which comprises more than thirty hospital engineering associations from all continents.

IFHE Europe was founded in 2005 in Strasbourg and unites the associations from twelve countries:
Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain.
Since then the conference has been held with ever more resounding success in Baden-Baden, Vienna, Goes, Paris and Bern.  Year 2015  congress will be held in Turku Finland  2nd to 5th  of June as an international ECHE- congress together with an annual national congress of the Association of Finnish Hospital Engineering  (AFHE).

The ECHE is now the biggest event of its kind in the European region and can be seen as the most important platform for the discussion of hospital-specific technical topics.

The objective of IFHE Europe is to gain an overall view of the challenges facing European healthcare policy in general and the associated technology- and organization-specific topics in particular, whilst taking into account the particular circumstances in each country. Improvement of technical and infrastructural management in hospitals. Promotion of an awareness for efficient hospital engineering. Discussion and comparison of experiences and working methods. Promotion of multi-disciplinary integrated planning and design. Improvement of efficiency in the management of technical processes, maintenance and safety in hospitals. The topics under discussion constitute a cross-section of the most important technical and infrastructural problem issues that hospitals face: sustainable development and greater energy efficiency, planning, architectural design, technical equipment, information and communications technology, hospital hygiene, maintenance and operations management, biomedical facilities, risk and quality management, and many more.

The conference focuses on comparing notes on best practices and exchanging experiences, to encourage innovations, benchmarking and the creation of common European standards.

The target audience of the ECHE encompasses executives in the healthcare industry, management, development, heads of medical technology departments, construction, safety, IT, energy, building services engineering and hygiene from companies, hospitals, universities and institutes.

Approximately 500 international and national delegates are expected to attend the congress Turku. The exhibition arranged in part of the congress is expected to have 70 to 100 national and international companies giving services to  hospitals.

Juha Rantasalo
Congress president
The Association of Finnish Hospital Engineering

Congress Office / IFHE-EU 2015
Lemminkäisenkatu 14-18 A 
20520 Turku

Tel. +358 2333 6342
fax +358 2251 0078

E-mail: congress-office@utu.fi

© University of Turku / Congress

Preliminary programme

The detailed programme can now be found here.

Please note that the programme is subject to changes.

Congress Office / IFHE-EU 2015
Lemminkäisenkatu 14-18 A 
20520 Turku

Tel. +358 2333 6342
fax +358 2251 0078

E-mail: congress-office@utu.fi

© University of Turku / Congress Office

Below are some suggestions for the topics of the presentations
Economy:

• How big share of their gross national product European countries spend money on healthcare?
• How to keep costs, quality and productivity in balance

Organisations and processes:

• Public healthcare organisations towards better productivity
• How to use technology and new innovations to increase productivity, efficiency and quality in hospitals.
• How to use technology and new innovations to increase productivity, efficiency and quality in hospitals.
• Public and private healthcare as co-operators
• Healthcare and hospitals as a  part of surrounding life
• How to use lean-thinking in hospital design
• Processing organization in hospital – way to better patient satisfaction with lower costs

Architecture and design:

• Doctors and nurses as a part of the hospital design team
• New way to make contract agreements to build better  and cheaper hospitals

Electricity and communication:

• Electrical power independency of hospitals from public power systems- capacity and solutions
• VOIP-communication to reduce costs and telecommunication backup systems in hospital
• Better electrical power network with black out tests in the hospital
• Solar panels part of electrical power network of the building
• Solar collectors to increase efficiency of energy consumption

Medical engineering:

• Maintenance service software to improve patient security of medical equipment
• Patient monitoring system part of general data communication  system – possibilities and threats
• The roles of staff in technical department and companies concerning medical equipment
• Security checking in medical equipment
• Module operating theatres

Building maintenance, environment and energy saving:

• Re-cycling to reduce waste
• Regulations of high hygiene water systems; practical solutions
• Indoor quality problems in hospitals – benchmarking case study in Finnish and European hospitals

Congress Office / IFHE-EU 2015
Lemminkäisenkatu 14-18 A 
20520 Turku

Tel. +358 2333 6342
fax +358 2251 0078

E-mail: congress-office@utu.fi

© University of Turku / Congress Office