WHO Office for Europe (WHO)

The World Health Regional Office for Europe (WHO EURO) is represented by two members on the PATH Advisory Board. They guarantee the alignment of PATH with WHO EURO strategic orientation on strengthening health system and the Tallinn Charter agenda. They advocate opportunities in the countries to use PATH as an entry point for creating an enabling environment to build a culture of measurement, continuous quality improvement and performance management. They communicate within the organization to align PATH with other WHO initiatives on quality and safety and on hospital governance. Through the Biennial Collaborative Agreement (BCA) between WHO EURO and Member States, WHO directly supports PATH implementation in the countries where it is an agreed priority for collaboration, either financially or with technical advice. WHO EURO also (pro-)actively supports initiatives to bring partner organizations and experts together under the PATH umbrella to build synergies and benefit from best available practices.

Jeremy Veillard is the acting Regional Adviser for Health Policy and Equity for WHO EURO. His team is in charge of supporting the Member States of the WHO European Region in strengthening their stewardship function through the development of decision support tools, health system reforms policies and capacity building in countries. Until April 2007 Jeremy Veillard was the lead for health system performance improvement for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, Canada. His project team was in charge of driving better health system outcomes through the development of stewardship tools, structures and policies. He led the development of strategy-based scorecards, of a health system accountability policy and of various strategic management and performance improvement tools that refocused the decision-making process of the Ministry of Health in Ontario on reaching better health outcomes in a sustainable manner. He also chaired a provincial task force providing recommendations to the Minister of Health on how to improve the governance of the Ontario Health System. Before his assignment in Canada, Jeremy Veillard was employed by WHO EURO as policy adviser in charge of hospital reforms and hospital performance measurement and management. He has a Masters degree in Health Administration from the French National School of Public Health (ENSP) and a Masters in History. Jeremy Veillard is also a former hospital administrator. He worked in French hospitals as a vice-president in charge of quality improvement and human resources. He is currently completing his PhD at the Medical University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The focus of his research and publications is on the use of private industry performance management tools to improve the health system stewardship function.

Ann-Lise Guisset has a background in management and a PhD in Public Health at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Université de Montreal (Canada). Ann-Lise has been teaching Masters students and undertaken extensive research in the field of health services. She was involved in PATH very early on. Initially, as part of her postdoctoral fellowship, she provided extensive background materials for development of PATH (review of the literature, surveys in countries). Then, as technical officer at WHO, she was also in charge of performance-related projects such the pilot implementation of PATH. She supported eastern European countries in setting up systems to measure hospital performance and to enhance accountability of hospitals. She then worked at the Ministry of Health (PFS) in Belgium where she facilitated the national PATH hospital network, particularly with regard to change management and the use of indicators as internal quality improvement tools. She guided hospitals in transforming the PATH indicators into concrete actions for quality improvement. At the PFS, she also participated in the development and implementation of individual hospital performance report cards based on administrative databases, strategic indicators at the level of Ministry of Health to monitor performance of the health system, and drafted "quality contracts" to provide hospitals with financial incentives to set up quality improvement structures and processes. Alongside these responsibilities she continued to collaborate with WHO as a temporary consultant, to pursue research in her field of interest, teach and participate in national and international conferences, and completed assignments as external consultant for among others the European Investment Bank.

WHO Country Office in Croatia

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WHO Country Office in Slovakia

WHO Country Office in Slovenia