The recognition was given at the ceremony, which took place at the Altice Forum in Braga, on October 14 and 15. The organization has three professional groups that make it up - doctors, nurses and clinical secretaries - and the annual national meeting provides for the sharing of problems, solutions and best practices in the sector.
The awarded project was developed within the scope of the strategic challenge of the third edition of the Post-Graduation in Health Management at Nova SBE and focused on the theme Psychological Safety (PS). Students Ana Matos, Ana Queiroz, Madalena Vieira da Costa, Madalena Prata Monteiro, and Paulina Rocha told us all about their group work, entitled "Organizational Growth Strategies and Health Safety: Pilot Project in a FHU", which made them jump from the Nova SBE classroom to the real world:
"In Portugal, there are few studies in this area, and this gap is even more evident in primary health care. Knowing that a high SP allows the reduction of the medical error rate, something of undeniable and pressing relevance, was one of the factors that immediately led us to embrace the theme with enormous commitment and enthusiasm".
They also explained to us that investing in the promotion of professional safety involves two sources of avoidable expenditures on health care systems simultaneously: the costs of occupational harm and the costs of harm to the user.
"We identified the opportunity to develop a model that allows FHUs to evaluate the levels of SP of professionals along the user journey, but also to identify opportunities for improvement. It also supports the definition of strategies to improve the initial assessment. This model reconciles the perspectives of clinical, non-clinical and staff, so that everyone feels part of the change through their contribution to a common purpose: a better daily experience for both staff and patients.
The group felt that the recognition "was a reward for the effort and dedication to the project, because it was often a challenge to reconcile work and family schedules that were also demanding, but we felt support from everyone along the way! Family, friends, colleagues, and even the users were thrilled and accompanied us step by step, and now they are also very proud!".
As for their assessment of the Postgraduate Course in Health Management, the group stressed the importance of the students' follow-up by the faculty:
"We begin by highlighting the support of Professor Dr. Filipa Breia da Fonseca, to whom we address the most sincere and deepest gratitude, because it was unsurpassed and always in a sense to make us grow, reflect and innovate and thus allow us to reach this brilliant result! We are very happy with the learning we had throughout all these months and very motivated to continue the development of our model and we are sure that Nova SBE will be the perfect incubator for all our wishes!".
