Les réseaux

(1996) - A network of health documentation centers.

IFLA Section of Biological and Medical Sciences Libraries Newsletter, 1996, vol. 17, n° 1, pp. 2-3.

In Europe, we have 15,000 hospitals opened 24-hours a day at the disposaI of 370 million European citizens. The Standing Committee of the Hospitals of the European Union (HOPE) is a non-governmental European association, created in 1966. Since 1995 it is an international social profit association that includes national hospital association as well as representatives from the national health systems of the fifteen member states of the European Union plus Switzerland as an observer.

The objectives of the Union include acting as a principal source of advice on hospital and health affairs, developing and maintaining information on the planning and operation of hospital services and of the health systems within which they function, promoting the exchange of programmes and training, maintaining links with the health professionals, and cooperating with international bodies such as the World Health Organization, The Council of Europe, etc.

To maintain an efficient flow of information between alI European countries by means of a computerized information system is a “condition sine qua non” for efficient health care and for analysis, research and communication. HOPE plans, therefore, to stimulate a European network of documentation centers on health and hospitals across Europe to function as a link between existing national and European documentation health centers.

EAHIL, the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, expects to play a strong role in the future network. For example, Ursula Hausen, former EAHIL president, has been involved in the HOPE meetings. She is now retired, but the executive board will continue to send representatives from EAHIL to future meetings. Other members have also been involved, with J.P. Accart giving a paper at the 7th HOPE meeting in Madrid last spring and Robert Gahn attending the Agora meeting in Brussels last October. For further information consult “Looking back and looking forward”, a report on five years of HOPE, produced by the Hospital Commit tee of the European Community in 1993.

Brochure On-Iine : The Section Brochure, entitled “Join the International Medical Librarianship Community” is also available on IFLANET.

cop. JP Accart, 2007