The international consortium of the EU project WHOLE has developed and launched a Virtual Academy for Health: a unique virtual space created for exchanging and gaining knowledge on European healthcare issues that fosters the use of ICT for learning, exchange, and collaboration in the healthcare sector, multiplies and furthermore consolidates dialogue arenas among policy makers, students, researchers,healthcare professionals and citizens.

The development of the Virtual Academy is a reaction to recent developments and changes in the field of innovation in European public health systems. Moreover initiatives of the European Union and the World Health Organization, have pinpointed the necessity of fostering cooperation and exchanges across boundaries in the healthcare sector, so as to enhance the quality, access, openness and innovation of healthcare education. Information technologies have already unfolded their potential and have proven to be successful in achieving these objectives, e.g. through the spectacular development of e-health and communities of practices worldwide.

However, it is fundamental to federate and further encourage these innovations by providing a virtual meeting point for the multiplication of their impact, what Virtual Academy for Health is. Every two weeks a new online discussion with experts on the subject is launched in a form of a public forum on the Virtual Academy. For the discussion themes, please see section “Public forums”.

Your active contribution to forum discussions will be highly appreciated and of great value, since it will also help defining future European strategies for the exchange of good practices and the creation of solutions for problems. Moreover, within the project WHOLE "European Master’s degree for Intercultural and Societal Healthcare Studies" is being developed: the first Master’s degree at international level which aims to explore and provide innovative content in the field of healthcare policies and strategies.

Together with the German, Greek, Slovenian, British, Italian universities and research centres (for full details about the partners please visit http://hrzserv10.zki.hs-magdeburg.de/moodle/file.php/36/project_partners.pdf), the Master’s degree will focus on themes that are the results of a consultation and research at international level. The objective is to develop a modular and flexible Master’s degree which addresses the needs of professionals of the sectors and develops solutions applicable in the work environment. Master’s level modules will be available from September 2009 onwards.

The primary target groups are students and healthcare professionals. For more on modules learning and content structure please visit http://hrzserv10.zki.hs-magdeburg.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=47&topic=1. For further information please visit www.whole-academy.eu.
Hope to meet you at Virtual Academy for Health!