We were finally able to organise a physical get together of EHPPA after more than two and a half years of online meetings! From 30th March to 1st of April 2022, EHPPA members participated to 3 different events in Zeist, the Netherlands.
On Wednesday 30th March took place the first meeting of the working group on securing supplies. Security of supplies has been selected as one of the areas on which EHPPA will focus during its current mandate, due to the recent events: Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. This working group is led by EHPPA’s vice-president Gerwin Meijer who is in charge of security of supplies. With the support of Trine Behnk, vice-president for European tender work programme, they have prepared an engaging presentation and incentivised the participants to reflect on topics such as risk and crisis management. In the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, an important part of the discussion was focused on the potential impacts of this conflict on the supply chains and the security of supplies in Europe. Another common problem that is of high interest for all members is the increase in prices of raw materials, products and services.
More meetings of this working group will follow throughout 2022 to keep sharing information and combine forces to help each other to overcome the present and future challenges in relation to security of supplies.
The 19th General Assembly of EHPPA Association was organised on Thursday 31st of March in the premises of NEVI, in Zeist. 13 participants from 10 member organisations were present and we had a very productive full day meeting. The President of EHPPA, Danny Havenith, has opened the assembly with sharing the vision and strategy of the association. After that, the morning session was dedicated to sharing news from our members. The different presentations generated a lot of discussions and showed us new areas for further exchange of good practices and experiences.
In the afternoon, the four vice-presidents had the opportunity to share their action plans and put forward the concrete projects they will prepare in 2022 and 2023. We have some exciting initiatives coming in all four categories: security of supplies, innovation, European tender work and external relationships. We will share them on our website and social media when they are ready to go public!
Between the specific topics covered during the afternoon session were:
Finally, Prof. Dr. Louise Knight and Dr. Frederik Vos from University of Twente have joined us for the last session of the day dedicated to European projects. We are currently preparing a proposal for a call on the topic of security of supplies, together with other partners from all over Europe. The proposal will be submitted by the end of April 2022, and we will be looking forward hearing back from the European Commission by the end of the year.
We will meet up again in November 2022 in Barcelona for the symbolic 20th General Assembly! We will be hosted by our colleagues from the Catalan Health and Social Care Consortium.
The third event organised in parallel in Zeist was the Hospital & Healthcare Procurement Masterclass. This 2-day training for senior procurers was co-developed in collaboration with our partners Health Proc Europe Association and the Dutch training centre NEVI. The first session of the Masterclass was dedicated only to procurers from EHPPA member organisation – we had 14 participants from 10 different countries. The contents were co-created by the trio of lecturers: Prof. Dr. Karsten Machholz, Frank Rozemeijer and Dieter Zocholl. Additional practical use cases were presented though virtual participation of invited organisations.
We are happy with this successful launch of a training that will benefit to many more procurers in the coming years! The next session of the Masterclass will take place in November 2022
Photo credit: Emily May ‘t Hoen