Twinning Slovakia on Transplantation: The Final Conference

On November 5th 2008 by the Slovak Ministry of Health in Bratislava, the final conference of the Twinning project “Improvement of Safety, Quality and Availability of Organs, Tissues and Cells for Transplantation”  was held. The project was implemented by the National Transplant Centre under the institutional leadership of the Ministry of Health, DG for International Relations and the EU, in partnership with Formez.
The project which was divided into 4 components for a total of 241 man days, was organized in three phases for a total duration of 23 months: the initial period of 12 months during which a pool of 26 experts carried out 72 missions on training and technical assistance at the Ružinov Hospital in Bratislava as well as at the Regional Transplant Coordination Centres in Martin, Banska Bystrica and Kosice; the second period of 11 months during which a software for the management of data related to the Slovak transplant system was presented; and finally, a one-month period during which 8 Italian experts headed for  Bratislava to test the software together with the Slovak experts.
The Slovak Minister of Health, Mr Rasi and the Italian representative Mr Belligotti from the Italian Embassy in Bratislava, took part in the final conference together with the project partners. Both Mr Rasi and Mr Belligotti expressed their appreciation for the work carried out and the results achieved by the project with the solid contribution to capacity building in transplant centres.
During the conference, the project results and in particular, the logical structure of the software for monitoring and organizing the national data on transplants, sharing of related data banks and training for operators who interface the software, were outlined.
Furthermore, attention was paid to the realization of a Quality System Management Guide for the implementation of guide-lines on transplantation and the reduction of management risks of transplant organs.
Great visibility was given to the official closing of the project owing to the press conference beside the Final Conference. In front of the TV cameras of the most important Slovak TV channels, the Italian Project Leader, Prof. Alessandro Nanni Costa, Head of the Italian Transplant Centre, as well as the representatives from the Slovak Ministry of Health, highlighted the importance of the project and the need to embark on future collaboration between the two countries, so as to increasingly encourage the exchange of information, data banks, experiences and competences in such a delicate field like transplant of organs.