On the 15th of March the third SYNERGY meeting took place on Saba. This meeting of the Caribbean Network of Leadership in Health Care was hosted by Saba Health Care Foundation (SHCF) and Benevolent Foundation Saba (BFS). There were 28 participants, from 9 healthcare institutes from St Maarten, Statia and Saba. The topic of the day was Safety. Koen Hulshof, director of the GGD and member of the Working Group Infection Prevention Saba held the keynote speech, together with his colleague Lennart Bergwerf (GP), on Anti-Microbial Resistance. Their presentation scored 8.4 on a ten-pointscale. Thereafter there was an introduction in the concept of safety (8.2) and 5-minute presentation by each of the partners (7.7).
Four organisations presented their best practices on safety. Tammie Papada, quality manager at SMMC presented their HSOPS survey on safety and she received the highest satisfaction score of the day: 8.6!!! The next presenter was Claudette Rijff of White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation (7.95), a joint presentation of safety at St Eustatius Healthcare Foundation (presented by Granville Hassel, 7.7) and a presentation by Gisele Codrington and Diana Bakker from Mental Health st. Maarten about violence and aggression in their work (8.17).
It is amazing to see how the network develops. From 13 participants the first meeting to 23 the second to 28 this time. And the day overall was rated the first time 8.2, the second 8.5 and this time even 8.6 !!!! on a ten point scale. The possibility for networking in all three meetings was rated 8.7. The question to what extent this day motivated to come next time rated also 8.7 (second time 8.7; first time 8.3).
However there is always room for improvement. A lot of ideas have been mentioned. Because of the amount of people attending it might be good to spilt up the group in subgroups regarding a (sub)theme during the day. More interactivity would be appreciated. One member suggested to come together two days once a year to deepen subjects, another to organise a conference for all staff of the participating organisations once in two years.
The next meeting is planned 15th of November 2019, hosted by SMMC on St Maarten and will be on Prevention.