Talking Healthcare International Hospital Federation

Climate change has a direct and increasingly damaging impact on both the health of communities and healthcare delivery. Luckily, the healthcare sector has many opportunities to reduce its negative environmental impact while contributing to better health for all.

We have taken the occasion of Earth Day - 22 April - to record a special episode of our podcast focusing on the role of hospitals in relation to environmental sustainability, a natural fit with their leading role in their communities and as champions of health.

At the IHF World Hospital Congress 2023 in Lisbon, the plenary session on sustainability in healthcare triggered a lot of queries from the audience. In this episode, we are delighted to welcome two healthcare leaders who will speak at our IHF Congress 2024 to answer some of these questions, in particular:

Cost is perceived as a barrier, but does going green help to reduce operating costs and how do we ensure it is a budgeting priority?Often "sustainability" is viewed as an issue about buildings and energy - how do we balance the conversation to include clinical care?Data doesn't need to be a barrier: how can hospital leaders approach measuring and benchmarking as part of their strategy?

The IHF Awards dates back to 2015, when the programme was launched at the 39th IHF World Hospital Congress in Chicago. In this episode we featured Alder Hey Children NHS Foundation Trust, winner of the 2023 Excellence Award for Healthcare Workers Wellbeing - an award that recognizes outstanding achievements in ensuring the wellbeing of healthcare workers through innovative projects, programs or services. Alder Hey Children NHS Foundation Trust's winner programme stands out for supporting and offering care for all staff. It is a service that is led by staff for staff, using compassion as a framework.



Dr Lawrence Lai, Honorary Member of IHF, sat down with Dr Jo Potier, Associate Director of Organisational Development at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.



Listen now and be inspired by Alder Hey Children NHS Foundation Trust's commitment to connect people to each other and to promote a culture that helps staff thrive at work.

As part of our Big Data Roadmap - a roadmap that leads you step by step through the design and delivery of a strategy to use Big Data in your healthcare organization - this episode focuses on the key issues relating to data collection for hospital leaders.



Dr Sujoy Kar, member of the Big Data SIG steering committee sat down with Joseph Thekkath from the Joint Commission. Together, they adress questions such as what's the purpose of collecting data? How do you quantify it? What is the role of emerging technologies?



Listen to this episode to learn more about all of this!

International Women’s Day is celebrated on the 8th of March each year – a campaign to raise awareness of gender inequity issues.In this episode, Dr Sangita Reddy from Apollo Hospitals India sat down with Dr Sawsan Abdel-Razig and Dr Pascale Anglade, both from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and long-standing members of the Women in Leadership SIG steering committee.

Dr Sangita Reddy shares with us some inspirational stories on how women's equity has come to occupy such an important place in her life. She talks about the importance of creating a strong and supportive ecosystem and of having a transformative purpose in life – among many other things.

Across the IHF’s network, we believe that well-managed hospitals improve health outcomes for everyone, everywhere. Strong leadership skills are fundamental to healthcare management. And, in an increasingly international setting, benefitting from shared knowledge and experience can transform organizational performance.

Since 2019, the IHF has offered an annual programme for selected young executives to improve their management and leadership skills, and to network internationally.

Between February and September participants attend a series of masterclasses in key healthcare leadership areas. Small group work to complete topical assignments are an opportunity for the selected young executives to share their insights across our global community. The capstone experience for participants is attending the annual World Hospital Congress, where they graduate to the YEL Alumni network.

In this episode, Taylor Johansen (YEL 2021), sat down with other YEL Alumni to talk about their experience and about how the programme helped them in their career journey.

In partnership with Healthcare UK, this 3-part podcast series will showcase the best of British innovation in our UK NHS services in the run-up to IHF’s World Hospital Congress in Lisbon in October. The Healthcare UK team, part of the Department for Business and Trade, works jointly with the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England to empower UK healthcare providers to do business overseas.

This final episode covers innovative approaches to care in the community and digital health in the UK. It showcases successful innovations that have had a positive impact in the UK and the hurdles and challenges faced along the way.

If you want to hear more, come and meet Healthcare UK at the World Health Congress, where they are running the symposium ‘Bridging the mental health care gap: lessons for hospital and healthcare leaders’ and the roundtable discussion ‘How innovations in early diagnostics and intervention solutions are being implemented into the NHS and improving the efficiency of cancer care in the UK’.