Evaluation of the participation of Aretaieion Hospital, Greece in the WHO Pilot Project of Health Promoting Hospitals.

Aretaieion University Hospital participated in the World Health Organization (WHO) Pilot Health Promoting Hospitals Project from 1993 until 1997, when the Hellenic Network of Health Promoting Hospitals was established. This study is an overall evaluation of the participation of Aretaieion Hospital at the HPH Pilot Project. The evaluation comprised two questionnaire surveys, one among all the professionals, and the other among the patients involved in the subprojects. At the professional's survey, the response was 88.6% (39), while at the patient's survey the response was 62.2% (84). Differences were identified between the perceptions of the professionals who were external collaborators and those who were members of the hospital staff. Problems of the Project were reported to be lack of funding, lack of time and personnel shortages, lack of health promotion background and lack of incentives. Major successes were reported to be the personnel training, the development of collaboration and teamwork, the improvement of the overall image of the hospital into the community, the improvement of the working conditions of the personnel. Perception of sustainability of the projects by health professionals was found to be related to how interesting they found their subproject and how relevant to the work of their department. The communication strategy was inadequately planned and this resulted in some difficulties in developing rapport with the patients. However, the patients felt that they benefited from the project, a view also held by the hospital staff professionals.