IFHE NEWS
Call from the First Vice-President for help and input for WHO’s Téchne network
The IFHE has a long history of successful work in ‘official relations’ with the World Health Organization, and – since the COVID-19 pandemic – has worked closely with the WHO’s Téchne network of architects, engineers, designers, and public health practitioners drawn from several institutions globally, writes IFHE First Vice-President, Walt Vernon. Téchne is described on the WHO’s website as a ‘technical science for health network’, with a ‘vision’ of ‘creating of safer, healthier, fairer, and more sustainable health and care systems, settings, and structures, through integrated multidisciplinary community-based and informed approaches to problem solving’. Walt Vernon explained: “As a non-governmental organisation, IFHE has served the WHO in various ways. Most significantly, during the COVID-19 crisis, we worked with WHO Téchne to provide volunteer expertise to help countries and organisations around the world manage their healthcare infrastructure to better respond to the challenges of caring for COVID patients. We have since been working with WHO Téchne, and will provide more information on this in our next newsletter. Some of the work developed with WHO through WHO Techné is highlighted in the report: Technical Science for Health Network: Techne: activity report 2020-2024 (see
https://iris.who.int/ handle/10665/379536)” Walt Vernon continued: “We have
a new request from WHO Téchne for IFHE experts to serve, and another to learn. The WHO’s Western Pacific Region has asked us to work with
these will be people who work in hospitals.
them to develop a tool to prescribe the right interventions. As you know, the Island Nations are the first to be feeling the overwhelming impact of the changing climate, as they literally sink under the rising seas. Their need is urgent.
“In Evidence Based Medicine,
the idea is to recommend the best possible intervention for a particular diagnosis. This is precisely what WHO is asking us to do. The WHO has a lot of tools that help a country to assess its facilities, but what they lack is a way to provide a prioritised roadmap for improvement. This is a very difficult thing to even think about. It must take into account local climates, facility condition, available resources, and anticipated risks. The task is audacious, which is why they are coming to us. “We will be developing
recommendations for envelope, water influent and effluent, energy supply systems, ventilation and thermal energy systems, waste management systems, and medical gas systems – and are likely to identify others as we go. We need two kinds of volunteers:
The WHO has a lot of tools that help a country to assess its facilities, but what they lack is a way to provide a prioritised roadmap for improvement. This is a very difficult thing to even think about… The task is audacious, which is why they are coming to us
26 Health Estate Journal February 2025
n people with expertise in these systems who are willing to help us with research and content creation;
n a peer review panel who will work with iterations of the tools to comment on their usability. Ideally,
“As always, we are looking for input from a diversity of countries. We hope you can help. If you are interested, send us an email at: Volunteers@IFHE. info.” Walt Vernon added: “The second WHO announcement is an upcoming event. WHO will be convening a high-level organisation to address continuing emerging science and best practices for mitigating the risk from infectious aerosols. IFHE has played a strong role in helping WHO with this issue for years now, and now has the chance to come together to do so again. The event will be in Gaeta, Italy, in early May. You can sign up here:
https://www.wiac2025.eu/ index.html I will be one of the invited speakers. We hope that IFHE can be well represented at this very important meeting.”
Latest Digest’s international perspectives
“The 2025 IFHE Digest has now been published, and you should all have access to it either by having copies sent to your main contact points or via the link at
https://content.yudu.com/ web/1u0jl/0A1urts/IFHE- Digest-2025/html/index. html?origin=reader,” writes Andy Wavell IEng, FIHEEM, the Digest’s Commissioning Editor. He added: “In addition, the Digest link is circulated via the IFHE Newsletter, which currently reaches over 3000 engineers, architects, and Facilities managers. “ “Yet again the membership has risen to the challenge and provided very interesting articles. The printed version includes 18 articles, while the electronic version contains a further four. Unfortunately, two articles from Brazil failed to get into the Digest, despite being prepared for the editing process. These will appear in the May 2025 edition of the ‘international’ HEJ. “We regularly receive interest in providing an article, but many fail
to materialise. If all the synopses were followed up, the Digest would regularly have between 25 and 30 articles. “The process of selecting
articles will begin again this month, and I would encourage you all to provide an article yourself, persuade a colleague to write something, or indeed look to what is provided to your national conferences, as there is always an interesting topic that would do well broadcast to the IFHE community.”
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