Pathways to a health promoting hospital

The concept of a hospital as a health promoting institution, which could suggest a complete change of functions, seeks to improve the performance of hospitals by broadening their scope through a comprehensive approach to health gain for staff, patients and their relatives. In 1993 the International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals initiated the European Pilot Hospital Project as a multi - site international five year model project (1993.1997). 20 hospitals of different types, sizes and ownership from 11 European countries participated in this project. Those hospitals went through an benchmarking process together with WHO regional Office for Europe and the International Coordinating Centre. The book summarizes the experiences, successes and problems of the European Pilot Hospital Project by compiling local case studies of the hospitals involved, describing the methodology of the European approach and cross-analysing results of the five years activities.