The World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Education, Research and Evaluation of Safety and Quality in Healthcare (WHO cc) at the NOVA National School of Public Health (NOVA NSPH) has been redesignated for another four years, for the period 2024-2028.
The WHO’s designation as a Collaborating Centre reflects the recognition of NOVA NSPH’s competences and expertise in these areas and presupposes a history of recognised, high-value collaboration. ENSP NOVA was first designated a WHO Collaborating Centre for Education, Research and Evaluation of Safety and Quality in Healthcare in June 2020.
For Paulo Sousa, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre, “this redesignation as a Collaborating Centre is due to the excellence, consistency and rigour of the activities carried out over the last four years and the recognition and appreciation of these activities by the WHO”. “The fact that we have earned the WHO’s trust to continue collaborating over the next four years, at various levels and in different areas of Health Quality and Patient Safety, will strengthen the relationships we have with international institutions and partners and will contribute to further expanding NOVA NSPH’s network and visibility as a global reference institution for these core areas in any health system and organisation”, adds Paulo Sousa.
“This renewal of the WHO’s confidence in our work is an honour and a stimulus for us to continue our mission in terms of teaching, research and community outreach, promoting evidence and actions that increase the quality of healthcare and patient safety. The activity developed by the collaborating centre is evidence of NOVA NSPH’s commitment to public health and the promotion of innovation.”, says NOVA NSPH’s director, Sónia Dias.
Over the last four years, the NOVA NSPH team has developed several activities in partnership with the WHO and with reference institutions worldwide in the areas of health policies and systems, health quality and patient safety, with emphasis on collaboration in the revision of the WHO Patient Safety Curriculum Guide; support in strengthening and disseminating the Framework on Patient Safety and Family Engagement; contributions to the drafting and revision of various WHO documents, the most recent example of which is the WHO Global Patient Safety Report 2024, published in June of this year; participation in national and international activities aligned with the implementation of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030: organisation of the 1st WHO Autunm School on Quality and Patient Safety in partnership with the WHO European Centre of Excellence for Quality in Care and Patient Safety. In the last two years, the activities carried out in terms of strategic planning for the areas of Quality in Health and Patient Safety, at national and international level, have been particularly noteworthy.
In the work plan for the next four years (2024-2028), in addition to strengthening and deepening the activities that have been carried out with the WHO, other initiatives and areas of action stand out, such as: i) collaborating in the “Global Challenge for Safe Medication”; ii) coordinating the creation and moderation of a network dedicated to Portuguese-speaking countries, as a sub-community of the Global Patient Safety Network; iii) supporting the WHO in building the capacity of countries in relation to the broad Quality of Care agenda, including the Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of the National Quality Policies and Strategies framework (NQPS framework) in WHO member states that request it; iv) collaborate with the WHO in the development of a methodology for evaluating the performance of health systems with regard to health quality issues and the consequent implementation and evaluation model; v) collaborate with the WHO in the development of research projects related to the areas of Health Quality and Patient Safety.