title: Hospitals--East meets West--reflections on international hospital co-operation.
abstract: On the European scene, particularly in the Member States of the European Union, the social system and the healthcare system as essential part of it are under demographic and economic pression and in full change. Hospitals being important partners in the healthcare network are rethinking their role and re-orienting their mission. Co-operation is a key issue both within the hospital with its multiple interprofessional relationships around the patients and outside the hospital with the variety of partners of the local healthcare network, with the general public and with the competent authorities. Change and co-operation are the keywords in the HOPE operation which the HCEC started in synergy with WHO Europe within a year after the Wall in Berlin was broken down in November 1989. Whatever the importance of East-West Co-operation between hospitals may be, it can not separate the paneuropean hospitals from the rest of the world. Hospitals and their national and international associations could play an exemplary role in the real active management of the changes at world level and in the prevention of poverty and violence.
authors.affiliation: Standing Committee of Hospitals of the European Union (HOPE).
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schutyser
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D005061:Europe, Eastern; D005062:European Union; D006739:Hospital Administration; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D007391:International Cooperation