The Croatian Institute of Emergency Medicine (CIEM) as the beneficiary of the EU project Continuous professional training of emergency medicine workers has announced today at the Ministry of Health the beginning of training exercises for pre-hospital and hospital emergency medical service (EMS) workers, which will be ongoing run until December 2021. The project was supported by Minister of Health Prof. Ph.D. Milan Kujundžić, MD who emphasized the importance of emergency medicine in the overall healthcare system and stressed the importance of education in further advancing the emergency medicine system.
The total project value of HRK 9,414,904.10 is co-financed by resources from the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme Effective Human Resources for the period 2014 – 2020. Of this amount, 85% is co-financed by the EU, while the remaining 15% of the project costs are financed by national funds. Due to the great mobility of healthcare workers in the field of emergency medicine, the expansion of the Emergency Medicine Network and the observed shortcomings in the knowledge and skills of nurses working in emergency department, there is a need to introduce new training exercises and implement them more intensively so that all who enter and work in the system are educated as soon as possible for the needs of emergency patients. The objective of the project, therefore, is maintaining and improving the knowledge and skills of emergency medicine workers, while at the same time advancing healthcare in the Republic of Croatia and improving access to high-quality health services.
"The ability to quickly acquire new knowledge and continually improve the existing knowledge and skills of EMS workers is the basis of the success of emergency medicine, but also a key factor in advancing the entire healthcare system in the Republic of Croatia", emphasized on this occasion the Director of CIEM, Prim. M.Sc. Maja Grba-Bujević, M.D. Through past project activities, new training programmes and materials were developed, and adequate equipment has been acquired to carry out the training. In the forthcoming period, starting from 13 March 2019, a total of 64 training exercises will be held within five training programmes for medical dispatch unit workers, doctors, nurses and drivers in pre-hospital EMS as well as triage workers and nurses in emergency departments. A total of 1824 emergency medicine workers will be trained, out of which 1380 pre-hospital EMS workers, 420 nurses working in emergency departments and 24 future national instructors.
