The 1st Steering Technical Committee (STC) meeting of the project IMPHACT (IMprovement of Palliative HeAlth Care quality and accessibiliTy in cross-border area) was held on 11 March 2021 in the City of Ljubuški in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The meeting was attended by the project partners Health Centre Metković (Croatia), Primary health care Centre Podgorica (Montenegro), Health Centre Ljubuški and Public Health Centre Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
The main objectives of the meeting were to present a general overview of the project activities concluded by March 2021, and a time plan for the upcoming activities in the next reporting period. Due to the recent changes in project teams, the project partners have used this opportunity to get to know new team members from Primary health care Centre Podgorica and Public Health Centre Zenica.
The STC meeting was concluded by project partners visiting the Centre for Palliative Care (Hospice of Divine Grace) of the Health Centre Ljubuški as an example of good practice in palliative care service.
Due to the current restrictions related to COVID-19, IMPHACT project partners are holding monthly online coordination meetings. The next STC meeting should be organized by Public Health Centre Zenica in June 2021.
On 12 March 2021the workshop Train the trainers was held in Health Centre Ljubuški. Through an interactive approach to the workshop and case reports, experts presented the development of palliative care throughout history, defined basic concepts in palliative care, emphasized the specifics of communication in palliative medicine, and presented psychiatric and psychological aspects of palliative care.
The participants of the workshop were mostly the employees and representatives from all project partners’ institutions. The gained knowledge will be transferred to the target groups in their countries, that include medical staff from regional health centers, hospitals, and nursing homes.
Project IMPHACT is funded by the European Union through the Interreg IPA Cross-Border Cooperation Programme Croatia-Bosnia and Herzegovina-Montenegro 2014-2020. The implementation of the project started on 1 July 2020 and will last until 30 June 2022. The total value of the project is 890.347,40 EUR.
