Bristol Health Partners joins centres for academic health integration on world stage

Bristol Health Partners Academic Health Science Centre joined international peers 19-20 June at a conference hosted by Aarhus University: ‘Supporting clinical-academic integration for health system sustainability’.

The conference brought together centres from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England and Singapore to discuss our different clinical-academic integration models, and consider how we design, develop, support and evaluate clinical academic integration.

Our Director, Professor David Wynick, gave a presentation on Bristol Health Partners’ evolution and achievements and Joint COO, Olly Watson, joined a panel on ‘the future of clinical academic integration’.

Delegates expressed huge interest in Bristol’s Health Integration Team (HIT) model and its integration with public and population health, and valuable connections were made for future cross-HIT collaboration in areas including pain and self-harm.

David Wynick said:

“While having many different names (Health Integration Teams, Clinical Academic Groups, KUFs in Danish), we found much common ground in the belief that bringing academia closer to the delivery of health and care can yield better outcomes for patients and communities.

“We were inspired by the diversity of models we heard about and how they were best used across the various health care systems across the many countries that were represented.”

Attendees supported a proposal for Bristol to host the next conference in 2025.