IFHE-EU is a non-governmental and non-political organization that was founded in 2005 in Strasbourg and unites the national associations of hospital engineering in Europe.
At this moment IFHE-EU consist of national associations of ten countries: Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Austria, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain. Other European nations are also considering joining to expand the federation and share knowledge and learning.
European congress
One of IFHE-EU`s most important tasks is to organize a bi-annual European congress for healthcare (ECHE). The ECHE is now the biggest event of its kind in the European region and can be seen as the most important platform for the discussion of hospital-specific technical and associated managerial topics. Over and above the ECHE congresses IFHE-EU has working groups for healthcare specific engineering issues like energy saving, ISO9001 etc.
Objective
The objective of IFHE Europe is to gain an overall view of the challenges facing European healthcare policy and practice and the associated technology and organization-specific topics in particular. This will be undertaken whilst taking into account the particular circumstances in each country.
Topics
IFHE-EU gives a platform via ECHE congresses to gather professionals together to give their experience and knowledge to each others under the topics of; for example:
Problem issues
The topics under IFHE-EU discussion constitute a cross-section of the most important technical and infrastructural problem issues that hospitals face including :
Sustainable development and greater energy efficiency, planning, architectural design, technical equipment, information and communications technology, hospital hygiene, maintenance and operations management, biomedical engineering systems, risk and quality management.
Since its formation, the IFHE-EU conference has been held with ever more resounding support and success in Baden-Baden (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Goes (Belgium), Paris (France), Bern (Switzerland), Turku (Finland), Bologna (Italy), Manchester (UK), Gerone (Spain) and Paris again (France). Congress 2025 will be held in Anwerp (Belgium) in May. Congress 2027 will be held in Baden in Switzerland.