Short-term education for health care administrators in Ukraine: Swiss-Ukrainian collaboration

Abstract

The Ukrainian health care sector has remained largely unreformed over the last twenty years with its obsolete medical infrastructure inherited from the Soviet time, ineffective payment mechanisms, underpaid staff and insufficient quality of care. The system needs change agents to promote and implement modern and efficient principles of health care service financing and organization The Swiss-Ukrainian Mother and Child Health programme generated reform experiences in education (clinical and managerial) and in introducing reforms in mother and child health care. In order to continue the momentum of health care quality improvement, the previous Swiss-Ukrainian collaboration suggests to place further importance on educational activities and related capacity building. The Summer School "Healthcare System Transformation.: Eastern Europe" (2014) had been initiated during the Swiss-Ukrainian collaboration and was inspired by the Lugano Summer School Health Policy, Economics and Management in Switzerland. In 2015, the Summer School has become the international event for Eastern Europe region It aims at stimulating reforms in healthcare system through high quality training courses. It further serves as a networking platform for health care managers and policy makers across the Eastern Europe. By providing new knowledge insights and innovative practical instruments the Summer School stimulates the transformation of healthcare system in Ukraine and in Eastern European countries. It also serves as the possibility to exchange the experience from different countries, widens the horizons of participants, facilitates ‘out of the box thinking’ that helps to find better solutions for existing challenges. Knowledge, skills and tools presented in Summer School facilitate efficient and evidence-based managerial practices at health care facilities and therefore lead to increa.sing access and quality of health care services.