Carlo DiClemente is Professor of Psychology at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  Dr. DiClemente is the co-developer of the Transtheoretical Model of behavior change, and the author of numerous scientific publications on motivation and behavior change with a variety of health and addictive behaviors. He directs MDQuit, the tobacco resource center for State of Maryland as well as the Center for Community Collaboration and the UMBC Home Visiting Training Center. For the past 30 years he has conducted funded research in health and addictive behaviors and been engaged in clinical services and research. His latest book is entitled Addiction and Change: How Addictions develop and Addicted People Recover.

After having given some clarifications on key concepts I will present some traditional roles of patients as well as new roles they may get in the shaping of health services. Patient centredness and participation opportunities for patients are essential requirements for quality improvements in health care.

Self-help friendliness is an approach to implement patient centredness and participation on the collective level, i.e. the level of self-help groups and organizations. The development of the approach and its main features will be described in the second section.

In section 3 the quality criteria defining self-help friendly hospitals will be presented, followed by research results concerning the acceptance of the criteria and experiences with putting them into practice.

Section 4 deals with the conference theme: Can we produce better health gain through implementing self-help friendliness as an approach to more patient centredness?

In the conclusions I will sum up the present state of knowledge and reflect on the transferability of the approach to other countries than Germany. Information on the recent foundation of a European network for self-help friendliness will be given.

Dr. Stanimir Hasurdjiev is one of the founders and current Chairperson of the Bulgarian National Patients’ Organization (NPO) – the biggest patients’ umbrella organization in Bulgaria which accounts to around 80 disease-specific member organizations representing patients with different socially significant diseases in all 28 regions in Bulgaria.

Dr. Hasurdjiev is a board member of EPF as well as a member of several regional and international organizations and networks. In addition, he is one of the initiators and founders of the joint initiative of the European Patients’ Forum and the Bulgarian National Patients’ Organization – the Patient Access Partnership (PACT) –, where Stanimir takes the position of a Secretary-General.

Dr. Hasurdjiev serves as a Secretary of the initiative "Health Partnership" which was officially launched in March 2015 as a permanent consultative body to the Council of Ministers. 

The Italian Regional Program on Health Literacy has long been attentive to health literacy and the responsibility that professionals and institutions have in removing literacy related barriers to health information, services, and care. Starting over ten years ago, this program began with efforts to transform oncology care, to increase community involvement and engagement, and to forge a better partnership between hospitals and their community. This presentation highlights steps taken to illustrate mechanism of change and potential efficacious outcomes. 

Health Literacy is now an important variable in health research and is being recognized as having several key components. Over the past two decades, the focus of attention for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, has moved beyond a singular attention to the skills and abilities of individuals and links to health outcomes. Health literacy studies now include careful evaluations of health texts, examinations of the communication skills of health professionals, and analyses of the literacy related characteristics of health and health care institutions.  This expanded notion of health literacy informed the action taken by the Italian Regional Program on Health Literacy.