Health Promoting Hospitals - Short History of HPH

Short History of HPH

Based on the Ottawa Charter, the first conceptual developments on HPH started in 1988. A first model project "Health and Hospital", was initiated in 1989 at the Rudolfstiftung Hospital in Vienna, Austria, and successfully finished in 1996. 10 model documents (in German language) summarise the learnings from the pilot project and are available online to guide hospital projects related to health promotion.

In 1990, the WHO International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals was founded as a multi city action plan of the WHO Healthy Cities Network. In 1991, the HPH network, which was in the beginning an alliance of experts, launched its first policy document, the Budapest Declaration on Health Promoting Hospitals. This document introduces the HPH concept and target groups - patients, staff, community - as well as related HPH strategies and action areas.

In order to implement HPH on a broader basis, a European Pilot Hospital Project of Health Promoting Hospitals was initiated in 1993, and finished in 1997. 20 hospitals from 11 European countries participated, 19 of which finished the project successfully. Also in 1993, the first
international HPH conference was organised, and the first international HPH Newsletter was published.

Since 1995, national and regional networks of HPH, all coordinated by their own national or regional coordinating centres, are being implemented and developed in order to disseminate HPH to as many hospitals and health care institutions as possible. The development of the HPH networks called for a new policy document: The Vienna Recommendations on Health Promoting Hospitals were launched in 1997.

In 2009, HPH has become a global movement with national and regional networks, individual member hospitals and health promotion initiatives on all continents. HPH member hospitals currently exist in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brasil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the USA.

In addition, several task forces develop specific HPH concepts, strategies and tools on specific subjects or for specific clinical areas:

  • Health Promoting Psychiatric Services
  • Migrant Friendly and Culturally Competent Hospitals
  • Health promotion for children and adolescents in hospitals
  • HPH and European Network of Smoke-free Hospitals and Health Services: Tobacco Free United

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