On the 15th of November the fourth SYNERGY meeting took place on Sint Maarten. This meeting of the Caribbean Network of Leadership in Health Care was hosted by Sint Maarten Medical Centre this time. There were 29 participants, from 9 healthcare institutes from St Maarten, Statia and Saba.
Th network keeps growing. From 13 participants the first meeting to 23, to 28 and to 29 this time. The topic of the day was Prevention. Eric Gertner , Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of South Florida, Morsani School of Medicine in Tampa, Florida held the keynote speech. His presentation scored 8.0 on a ten-pointscale. Thereafter there were 10-minute presentations by each of the partners (score 7.6).
The lunch by Emilio’s was very good, as usual.
In the afternoon a WorldCafe session was organised around three questions:
1. What is the take home message from the presentations on prevention?
2. Wat hinders prevention?
2. What supports prevention?
This event scored even a 8.1. The day overall was rated the first time 8.2, the second time 8.5, the third time 8.6 and now back to 8.4 on a ten point scale. Still a good score, but the participants feel the topics need to be discussed deeper and there should be some activity in between the half yearly meetings. The possibility for networking in all four meetings was rated 8.7. The question to what extent this day motivated to come next time rated 8.0 (third time 8,7, second time 8.7; first time 8.3).
One of the suggestions made is not only to present what has been done, but also the results. Furthermore there is a need not only to present success stories, but also show what did not go well and ask the audience for support, suggestions for improvement. Actually , the presentation of Saba Healthcare Foundation by Joka Blaauboer ended with the question for suggestions how to improve the compliance to hand hygiene.
After the meeting we gathered at Emilio’s for a final networking session.
The next meeting is planned in March 2020 hosted by Mental Health Foundation on St Maarten. Topics will be incident reporting and health education.