Standing Committee of Health Professionals

Current activities

Congress programme for HPR
The EULAR congress 2008 in Paris saw the largest HPR programme ever. The programme included a total of 13 sessions involving EULAR Health Professionals. Four of these were joint sessions with the rheumatologists as well as PARE (People with Arthritis/Rheumatism in EULAR) and nine were pure HPR sessions. There were oral presentations of submitted abstracts during the invited speakers' sessions. Additionally, an extra session was held for purely HPR abstracts in order not to disadvantage abstracts not in line with the planned topics of the invited speakers' sessions. This abstract session was a mix of different topics and gave an excellent overview of the research work done by health professionals in rheumatology.

The next EULAR congress will again be the venue of high-quality scientific sessions introducing health professional research and issues of interest in the practical health professional work. In 2010, there were two abstact sessions as well as joint sessions organised together with rheumatologists and PARE.

In addition to the scientific programme, the HPR are also represented with a booth in the exhibition area, which provides a great platform for informal meetings of HPR.

Travel Bursaries
Every year EULAR awards a number of travel bursaries each to the first or presenting author of a health professionals abstract that has been accepted for oral or poster presentation at the annual EULAR congress.
Read more >>

Educational visits
EULAR awards up to 10 bursaries for educational visits to health professionals other than physicians working in the field of rheumatology to enable them to make an educational visit to colleagues in another EULAR member country. The amount of each of the bursaries is between 750 and 1500 EUR. The total annual amount granted is 7,500 EUR. The objective is to improve the standard of research and care and to foster collaboration across clinical units in Europe.
Read more >>

Research grants
Every year EULAR funds one health professional's research project in the field of arthritis/rheumatism that is in line with the mission, goals and strategies of EULAR. Projects will be funded up to a maximum of EUR 30,000.
Read more >>

Courses
There are plans for new HPR courses, such as Teach-the-Teacher courses, in the near futrure.

• The first HP Teach-the-Teacher Course
  The first EULAR HPR Teach-the-Teacher Course was held in May 2008 in Leiden, the Netherlands. The course focused on the recent state of the art in diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, and was aimed at occupational therapists, physiotherapists and nurses. Due to the teach-the-teacher approach, the imparted knowledge is now being spread in different European countries by means of various educational activities.
  
• HPR course on the management of RA and OA 2009
  The main aim of this course is to provide an evidence based post-qualification education programme on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Osteoarthritis (OA) which meets the clinical needs of nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists working in the field of rheumatology. The first course was held in Brno, Czech Republic, from 16 to 19 October 2009.
  

RELATED INFORMATION

Health professionals programme committee

A dedicated programme committee is working on the HPR programme for the upcoming EULAR congress.
Read more >>