Enhanced collaboration among RITA’s Affiliated Partner Centres
November 2021 in Prague
ERN-RITA has organised its first exchange visit as part of the ERN Exchange Programme. The aim of the visit was to enhance collaboration and share knowledge among RITA’s Affiliated Partner Centres.
Nine Affiliated Partner professionals from Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Denmark and Austria participated in the three-day event which was organised by the RITA coordination team at University Medical Centre Utrecht and hosted by the General University Hospital in Prague.
The face-to-face event proved to be very much needed and successful for network members that haven’t been able to attend RITA events since the Covid-19 pandemic. Key ERN-RITA activities were discussed, collaborations explored and input for new activities provided by the participants. On a very practical level, difficult cases suitable for CPMS have been discussed, while learning from each other and using the RITA Clinical Patient Management System format. Furthermore, suggestions were made to include local resident programmes into the envisaged ERN-RITA Academy. In addition, great interest was shown to participate in the ERN-RITA registry (MERITA).
Overall, it became clear that there is a (regional) need for patient involvement and strengthening patient organisations in the smaller ERN represented countries in North-East, Central and South-East Europe.
We are looking forward to new ERN-RITA exchange visits, once the programme will resume after the temporary pause due to the 4th Covid-19 wave. We hope to resume the programme activities from the 1st of March 2022 onwards.
Requests for exchange visits can be sent to contact-rita@ern-net.eu