WorkInHealth Foundation talks skills gaps and development at EIT Health Career Path event 

On 28 and 29 November 2024, the EIT Health Career Path event took place in Budapest, bringing together participants across various EIT Health programmes to celebrate their achievements and inspire their future growth in health innovation. 

Across the two-days in Budapest, graduates from the EIT Health Labelled Programmes, the i-Days finalists from 25 different European cities, the Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp winning teams, and the EIT Health Innovators Community were able to participate in workshops and talks tailored towards building skills and knowledge surrounding the healthcare field.

The WorkInHealth Foundation had the opportunity to lead the Future Skills of Future Leaders workshop dedicated to promoting soft skills for women in the health sector. WorkInHealth Foundation Senior Program Manager Urška Bux along with Radio Embassy CEO Lenja Faraguna explored the world of skills development for women in the healthcare industry, similarly, promoting WorkInHealth Foundation’s FutureHealthHERo initiative. Young women in the health field are often overlooked and WorkInHealth Foundation knows this, which is why we created FutureHealthHERo, whose mission is to encourage leadership among women in the healthcare field. This programme further supports our objective of closing the skills gap within the sector to further the growth and sustainability of its future. 

We were also delighted to present our recent report on “Addressing skills needs in the European health sector, co-written with the European Investment Fund. This report discusses the current skills gap within the healthcare field and the urgent need to address it in order to promote innovation and sustainability while also offering attainable solutions to these challenges. The report explores that through four main axes – anticipate, attract, train, and match – the goal of closing the skills gap can be achieved. 

During the event, our partner Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined in on the celebration of young talent by gifting Cloud Credits to the winners of the i-Days competition which brings together students from all academic areas to compete in teams to tackle real-life health challenges posed by EIT Health, local organizations, private corporations or start-ups. This year, JA Cyprus from Nicosia won the competition with their solution for efficient nasogastric tube catheter placement in patients. Their solution uses a built-in pH sensor whihc is activated by capillary actions to provide visual confirmation through acuity readings when the catheter reaches the stomamch, making insertion more reliable and painless. Find out more about the partnership between AWS and the WorkInHealth Foundation here.  

WorkInHealth Foundation is grateful to have been part of the EIT Health Career Path event this year and for the opportunity to further promote our mission of addressing and closing the skills gap in the health sector in order to enrich the image of the sector to attract talent! With every event, we aim to accelerate the future of healthcare. 

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