The WHPA is an alliance of dentists, doctors, nurses and pharmacists. The Alliance represents more than 20 million health care professionals worldwide and assembles essential knowledge and experience from key health care professions. The WHPA aims to facilitate collaboration between key health professionals and major international stakeholders such as governments, policy makers, and the World Health Organization. By working in collaboration, instead of along parallel tracks, the patient and health care system benefit.
Please click on the links below or visit www.whpa.org for more information about the WHPA:
The theme for this year’s conference is “The Role and Future of Health Professions Regulation”. It will take place 17-18 May 2008.
The conference, hosted by the World Health Professions Alliance in cooperation with the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, will bring together leaders in health professions regulation to discuss:
Different models of health professional regulation
Regulatory body governance and performance
Trade in services and implications for regulation
The event will be of particular interest to:
Policy makers in the field of health care systems and regulatory affairs
Health system managers and administrators
Health professional and health association leaders
Researchers and scientists in the field of public health and regulation
Abstracts for poster presentations can be submitted for this Conference from 1 December 2007.
World Health Professions Alliance launches new global health communication platform
22.11.07 - The World Health Editors Network (WHEN), a new inter-professional, international health communication platform, will be launched 22-23 November 2007, with an HIV/AIDS 2008 briefing in London, at the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College. [+]
The WHEN network aims to link editors of the over 400 national health professional association journals affiliated with the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA) and its constituent association members – the World Medical Association (WMA), the International Council of Nurses (ICN), the FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) and the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), representing doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists worldwide – as well as prominent health editors in radio, television, print and electronic media globally.
“We welcome this new interprofessional exchange platform,” states Dr Burton Conrod, President of the FDI World Dental Federation. “We see it functioning as a clearing house for sharing stories and materials across borders, as a forum through which to devise and develop coordinated health communication campaigns, and as a sounding board offering feedback to international agencies and associations about the efficacy of their information and campaigns.”
WHEN membership is voluntary and free. The only requirement is that members agree to work towards agreed ethical guidelines. By developing relationships with publications around the world, WHEN members will have an opportunity to network among colleagues across disciplines and borders and develop new strategies for disseminating public health messages.
The HIV/AIDS 2008 briefing on Nov 23 , co-sponsored by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will feature a keynote speech by Stephen Lewis, former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, current Co-Director of AIDS-Free World and Professor in Global Health, Faculty of Social Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and a broad array of agencies – including Oxfam, WHO Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the European AIDS Treatment Group, the Terrence Higgins Trust, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Imperial College London. All agencies will present new plans, studies and reports addressing key 2008 HIV/AIDS challenges.
WHEN meetings are planned for January and May in Geneva on the occasion of the WHO Executive Committee and World Health Assembly.
Core competency Framework for International Health Consultants
2007.11 - International health care consulting is
becoming big business with an ever increasing
field of health consultants
on the market. Faced with a wide
range of consultants with varying
credentials, experience, competencies
and backgrounds, deciding who
is really qualified can be no more
than guesswork. At the same time
health consultants themselves are
seeking frameworks to guide their
practice. [+]
The World Health Professions Alliance identified the need to develop competencies for international health consultants that could be shared across geographies and settings. A Core Competency Framework for International Health Consultants provides a practical guide for those seeking to engage health care consultation services and presents a benchmark against which individuals who wish to offer their services can assess themselves and if necessary seek additional training before taking up assignments.
The competencies were derived from a review of the literature and a series of reviews from experts who serve as consultants, employers, and/or clients. They are meant to reflect the abilities common to health consultants whatever their specific discipline.
This publication will be freely available for viewing and downloading via the WHPA website at www.whpa.org in November 2007.
WHPA meets with Director General of the WHO
2007.03 - The Executive Directors of the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA) met Dr Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and other members of the WHO, on 14 March 2007 to discuss the improvement of health for the underserved populations.
[+]
The purposes of the meeting were:
For the Executive Directors to personally meet Dr Chan
To provide information about the WHPA and the member organisations
To confirm the WHPA’s wish to collaborate with and to support the WHO
To establish areas of collaboration with the Director General and the WHODr Barnard took the opportunity to highlight the FDI’s structure, membership, vision and missions to the WHO. He also expressed the FDI’s delight about the developments in the Executive Board, where a resolution on oral health was accepted for presentation to the World Health Assembly. In addition, he congratulated Dr Poul Erik Petersen, Chief of the WHO Oral Health Programme, on his work on the proposed resolution.
Other matters of discussion included human resources for health, counterfeit medicine, the importance of prevention of oral disease and the importance of ethics and ethical principles.
The Director General informed the four WHPA organisations that they are seen as important partners of the WHO and also requested the WHPA to submit suggestions and strategies for achieving improved access for all.
According to the Executive Directors of the WHPA, the meeting was “a very positive beginning for what we believe will be a fruitful relationship between the health professions and [Dr Chan’s] administration.” “Both the WHPA and the WHO share a commitment to primary health care, in a context of the continuum of care and the development of health systems that provide equal access to quality health services for all, and hope for both patients and for the health professionals caring for them.” The WHPA looks forward to working with the WHO and Dr Chan at both the policy and technical levels.
WHPA Leaders' Forum - May 2006
2006.05 - The second biennial WHPA Leaders’ Forum took place 20-21 May 2006 in Geneva. It presented a platform for leaders across the various health professions to discuss and work together toward common goals. The theme of this year’s forum was “Working together for safe health care”. The two-day forum was divided into three parts:
Patient safety, building a blame free, responsible healthcare environment
Combating counterfeit medicines and materials to enhance patient safety
Dr Michèle Aerden, FDI President, presented alongside other Presidents of the Alliance Partners on the impact of health professionals on society. Dr Burton Conrod, FDI President-Elect, participated in a panel on “How to move forward?” in regards to “Patient safety, building a blame free, responsible healthcare environment”. Other speakers included Dr Sheila Tlou, Minister of Health, Republic of Botswana, Howard Zucker, Assistant Director General of World Health Organization, and Daniel Ford, National Patient Safety Foundation.
Members of the FDI Council were amongst the delegates, who represented the FDI at the Forum. Members from the International Council of Nurses, International Pharmaceutical Federation and the World Medical Association were also present as delegates, while representatives from health organizations, such as the World Health Organization, participated as observers to the forum.
“Joining the WHPA as its fourth member opened many doors for the FDI. We are more involved in advocacy matters than ever before and make excellent progress in establishing the principle across the spectrum of medical professions that oral health is an integral part of general health,” said FDI Executive Director, Dr JT Barnard.
Acknowledging the increasingly important role of communicators in shaping health policy choices, the WHPA supports the creation of WHEN.
WHEN is an inter-professional, public/private information exchange platform for addressing key global health communication trends and challenges and strengthening public health communication and advocacy capacity. Membership is free and voluntary in this network of editors who meet occasionally to share information, gain specialist knowledge and contacts, communicate with colleagues across disciplines and national boundaries, and develop new strategies for disseminating public health messages. WHEN also aims to be a forum through which to devise or coordinate ethical codes for health communications, as well as to help assess the efficacy of health communication campaigns.
Upcoming Events
17-18 May 2008 / Geneva, SWITZERLAND
General WHEN Membership Meeting
Past Events
23-24 January 2008 / Geneva, SWITZERLAND
WHEN advisory group meeting and briefing on Climate Change and Health
The purposes of the meeting were: