Implementing health promotion in hospitals : manual and self-assessment forms

Abstract

Health promotion is an integral part of the health care process and is related to clinical, educational, behavioural, and organizational issues. Quality improvement needs to embrace health promotion activities in order to make sure that effective approaches are used and continuously being monitored to improve outcomes. As many common quality management tools do not address health promotion activities explicitly, we developed this "Manual on implementing health promotion in hospitals". Its aim is to enable managers and health professionals to: assess health promotion activities in hospitals; improve the capacity of health care organizations in improving health promotion activities; formulate recommendations for the improvement of health promotion activities in hospitals; involve all professionals and the patient in improving the quality of care; improve the coordination of care with other providers of care; improve the health and safety of staff and patients. Individual hospitals, quality agencies and in particular members of the International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals are encouraged to use this tool and to assess and improve the quality of health promotion activities in health care