Project No. LLI-396 “Hospital cooperation in creating an effective surgical services management in the cross-border region” (Hospitals for CBC) was finished on June 30 2021. There were implemented these main activities:
1. Project leading partner Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas hospital has organized refresher courses for the medical and administration staff. The aim of these courses – to build and strengthen overall medical and administration specialists’ qualification in the field of 11 topics such as:
- Team work. Participants discovered the importance of team work, effective ways of working in teams and how to strengthen and motivate teams.
- Participants were introduced to the concept of leadership behaviors and received effective leadership knowledge to improve organization’s performance.
- Conflicts management. Participants have received both theory about the reasons for emergence of conflicts and practical exercises on working with different types of people and turning arguments into discussion.
- Organization results evaluation. Participants were introduced to organizational assessment process in order to get valid information about the performance of an organization and the factors that affect that performance.
- Human resource management. During this training participants have received information about the role of human resource management and its impact on the results of the organization.
- Internal communication. Participants restored and strengthened respect ant conversation between different colleagues and departments and learned how to avoid potential crises.
- Strategic planning. Participants have learned the basic elements of strategic planning and developed the best strategic planning process to achieve organization’s goals.
- Time management. Participants have improved ability to plan and prioritize work and learned how to deal with unexpected events that steal time.
- Public speaking. Participants have developed and strengthened public speaking skills and received knowledge about preparation for public speaking and audience management during the speech.
- Stress management. During training participants were introduced to stress symptoms and basic principles of managing emotions and stress.
- Successful organization representation and image. Participants were provided with structure and content of organization’s image and developed its creating practical skills.
249 medical and administration specialists from different hospital’s departments from November 2018 till May 2019 have participated in these courses and received huge qualification upgrade which is and will be very useful for their everyday work. Most of the participants expressed very positive feedback.
Project partner Daugavpils regional hospital has also organized refresher courses. Within the period from July 23 till August 30, 2019 project partner organized training for the hospital medical and administration staff. Eleven training cycles and practical classes were led by associate professor at Daugavpils University, Dr. psych. Vitālijs Raščevsks.
Various topical topics were covered during the training, for example: the consequences of professional burnout, how to protect yourself from burnout at work, prevention of emotional burnout, emotional intelligence, cooperation with colleagues, communication modes and styles, time management, leadership, strategic planning, problem solving, etc. During the training, various practical classes were organized to learn different methods, including stress reduction in everyday life. 223 employees of the hospital improved their professional qualification. Of particular note were cycles such as body-oriented stress therapy, which also included acquisition of practical stress reduction techniques. Emotional self-regulation – how to deal with your emotional tension without affecting other people’s psyche and how to manage your emotions. Participants were actively involved in the training cycle, asking questions, discussing and participating in practical classes.
2. In order to improve of management of surgical services and raise their administration capacities project leading partner Kaunas hospital has purchased and installed the set of telemedicine equipment (video recording computers, cameras, monitors, video and audio streaming equipment and software) which allows to film, stream, archive and review videos for these specific purposes:
- Record and archive surgery cases and use this information in cases of medical consiliums and medical audits.
- Use of interesting surgery cases in educational activities for medical students and surgery residents. Both live and recorded video material can be used for educational purposes.
- Record and archive diagnostic cases and use them to evaluate current situation and the effectiveness of the treatment before the surgery and to evaluate the research dynamically for choosing the most effective surgical method.
- Live consultations by senior and experienced surgeon. This equipment allows performing these consultations without leaving his current location and entering the surgery room, making disinfection and putting special clothes. These preparation actions prolong surgeries, increase operation costs and leave more possibilities for prolonged anesthesia and in rare cases can cause hospital infections. Equipment allows for consulting specialist to have a live conversation with colleague in surgery room from his cabinet or other working place.
- Live translations from all 8 surgery rooms and corridors of surgery block allow to observe the working process and to know the exact phase of operations. This allows to reduce time for preparation for surgeries and to perform more operations per day. As the result, the waiting time for scheduled operations will be shortened.
Telemedicine equipment in surgery room of Kaunas hospital
3. Daugavpils regional hospital staff work placements in Kaunas hospital
In order to gain experience from Lithuanian colleagues 10 doctors and nurses from Daugavpils regional hospital had come to Kaunas hospital for 1 week work placements. The work placements took place on 11-15 of November and 9-13 of December 2019.
The main work activity topic was abdominal Wall Repair Workshop. Work was divided in two parts – theoretical and practical. First of all surgeons and nurses discussed possible methods of operations, indicative operations, equipment needed for surgeries, organization of surgeries, postoperative nursing and treatment of patients.
The second part include live demonstration of operations and a review and discussion of complicated clinical case records. Practical training aim was to improve the skills and knowledge of laparoscopic general abdominal wall hernia surgery, which will allow for the implementation of minimally invasive procedures in Daugavpils regional hospital Surgery units.
4. Project leading partner has organized 3 vocational trainings for surgeons / doctors / administration in Kaunas hospital:
1) Training within topic “Minimally invasive endovascular treatment of varicose veins” was organized on 24 of January 2020 with 109 participants;
2) Training within topic “Minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery for groin hernias” was organized on 26 of February 2020 with 115 participants.
3) Training within topic “Minimally invasive laparoscopic colon surgery” was organized on 14 of May 2021 with 36 participants.
In total 260 participants attended in all 3 vocational trainings. During the trainings doctors, nurses and other health care specialists had the opportunity to learn the newest practical knowledge, ask questions and discuss the particular surgery cases presented and got the professional development certificates.
Project partner has also organizd 3 vocational trainings for PP’s surgeons and other staff in Daugavpils regional hospital:
1) Training within topic “Organization of patient personal data protection” was organized on 21 of February 2020 with 12 participants;
2) Training within topic “Laparoscopic surgery” was organized on 25 of March 2020 with 11 participants;
3) Training within topic “Modern tendencies of parental nutrition” was organized on 24 of April 2020 with 13 participants.
In total 36 participants attended in these 3 vocational trainings during this activity.
5. Project partner Daugavpils regional hospital has renovated the existing conference hall at Daugavpils Regional Hospital. After the renovation the multifunctional conference hall with a telemedicine system has been created, which can be transformed into two independent rooms. It is a state-of-the-art training center for hospital professionals, staff and medical students. The classes organized in the training center will provide staff training and opportunities to cooperate online, consult with colleagues from other hospitals. As a result of the project, an excellent cooperation is formed between Daugavpils and Kaunas surgeons, which is already a platform for further professional cooperation in other fields of medicine.
6. Project leading partner Kaunas hospital on 4th of June 2021 has organized one day international remote conference “Minimally invasive (laparoscopic, endoscopic) methods in emergency surgery” with 4 invited speakers, as well with 5 speakers from Daugavpils regional hospital in Kaunas with 75 participants from partners’ and other medical institutions.