Healthreats at the Workshop on Generic Preparedness Planning (GPP).

The HEALTHREATS project has taken part to the Workshop on Generic Preparedness Planning (GPP) projects funded under the Health programme 2003-2008, organized by the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (EAHC) on behalf of Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) of the European Commission.

The workshop, held in Luxembourg on September 30-October 1 2009, has been attended by 23 designated representatives of the projects to be presented and by observers from EAHC and DG SANCO and several other international institutions including the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

The main goals of the workshop have been the exchange of experience among projects, in order to identify areas of possible cooperation and coordination, and the production of inputs to the definition of policy needs related to the implementation of the Health Security projects.

Prof. Pietro Baroni of University of Brescia, on behalf of the HEALTHREATS project coordinator Dr. Carmelo Scarcella of ASL Brescia, has presented to the workshop participants the main project motivations, its partnership and articulation into work packages (WPs), its goals related to the notion of PDT (Processes, DSS, Training) package and the current state of advancement of the project activities, including the results of the completed WPs and the work plan for the next (and final) year.

In the discussion with workshop participants following the project presentation it has been remarked that the HEALTHREATS consortium is committed to ensure the reusability of its methodology and results beyond the strict scope of the project. In particular, the state-of-the-art BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) open standard has been adopted for process modeling and representation and the design of the Decision Support System ensures that its core processing engine can be reused in other contexts where similar decision support needs are present and the same general process modeling notation is applicable.

Potential opportunities of cooperation and exchange with other projects in the area of pandemic preparedness presented at the workshop have also been identified, including in particular the "Health security and health system preparedness" initiative of the Regional Office for Europe of WHO. Moreover, as part of the exchange and dissemination activities, the HEALTHREATS project newsletter has been distributed to workshop participants and a concise project description has been included in the workshop brochure.