PARE0005 Educational partnership between sweden and estonia
Authors: M. Jaakson
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2013)

<h3>Background</h3> Knowledge Transfer Programme is an annual programme developed by EULAR Standing Committee of PARE which provides a defined grant to the educational visit programme. The programme designed for patient organisations who wish to develop their skills and improve their knowledge by learning from the expererience of other organisations in the EULAR network. <h3>Objectives</h3> By organising this visit, we expect to get new members through better cooperation with rheumatologists and health professionals and social media network; raise awareness about RMD by inviting ministry, health insurance fund and parliament representatives and MEP to take part in our project; to motivate people to work in patient organisation; to work towards Estonian Parliament RMD support group; to ensure our organisation sustainability through better fundraising abilities; have closer cooperation between Estonian and Swedish colleagues by inviting them to take part; to strengthen our organisation by sharing with other members, partners and stuff. <h3>Methods</h3> During the three long days we visited office of the Swedish Rheumatism Association, Stockholm County Council and Karolinska University Hospital´s Rheumatology Department. <b>The first day</b>&nbsp;was focused on the organizational structure and public relations of the Swedish Rheumatism Association in terms of membership, administrative hierarcy, and the board, etc. We had a two lectures "Work as Physiotherapist and Research?" and "Reasearch Object and Partner?" by&nbsp;<b>Christina&nbsp;Opava&nbsp;-</b> Physiotherapist and RA -patient. <b>The second day</b>&nbsp;we visited the office of regional politican&nbsp;<b>Dag Larsson</b>&nbsp;from Stockholm County Council who explained how Health Policy works in Sweden.&nbsp;<b>Kristina Söderlund</b> the leader of political campaings of Swedish Rheumatism Association, gave an overview of umbrella organizationś cooperation with politicans in a local and regional level in Sweden. <b>The third day</b>&nbsp;we visited Karolinska University Hospital's Rheumatology Department.&nbsp;The department has inpatient, day care and specialized wards in Huddinge and Solna- in addition to primary care consultation services. It also operates as an office at Soder Hospital. &nbsp;The department is also engaged in research, training and specialized training. Rheumatologist&nbsp;<b>Bo Ringertz</b> showed us how the Department of Rheumatology works and what kind of e-health system they use in their daily work. <h3>Results</h3> We learned how Swedish Rheumatism Association works as a roof-organization. How they work with their member-(local)-organizations and- memberships. This educational visit helped the Estonian Rheumatism Association and our member- organisatsions to understand better how we should organize our work in the future, how we could strengthen our organisation and develop a better fundrising. We also got useful tips on how to work successfully in the political area and also ideas about how to better cooperate with stakeholders in Estonia and in Sweden. <h3>Conclusions</h3> The Estonian Rheumatism Association will measure the success of the educational visit by: 5% increase of members in one year time; 5% of income from fundraising by the end of the project; having 2 roundtables/meetings with other stakeholders by the end of the project and 4 times a year in one year time; 3 articles in media (also local newspaper) about our organisation, RMD Arranging a second visit in 2013 for the Swedish organisation to come to Estonia and prepare a long term partnership plan <h3>Acknowledgements</h3> The biggest thanks goes to Swedish Rheumatism Association especially Anne Carlsson and Magdalena Olsson for helping to organize so intresting and educational visit! <h3>Disclosure of Interest</h3> None Declared