The acquisition and development of transversal competences, especially communication skills, are highlighted by the main world and European forums on education and work as priorities to be taken into account to meet the current and future demands of society as a whole. Currently, communication skills in healthcare professionals are a key element for the implementation of the new healthcare paradigm of person-centred care, as well as one of its greatest deficiencies, as pointed out in numerous studies. In the report recently provided by the European Patients Forum (2017), he points to the social and communication skills of health personnel as a deficit aspect in their training and great need of reinforcement/training. In the training of health professionals, these competencies are considered as a crucial aspect for the adequate professional development capable of facing the new healthcare demands, but they nevertheless encounter numerous limitations for their adequate training. HEALTHCOMM SIMULATOR aims to promote the acquisition of transversal and basic competences, specifically in the communication of future health professionals of different university degrees, developing for this an innovative pedagogical tool based on a virtual simulation environment capable of providing information in real-time. All this in order to facilitate the transfer of said competences effectively and efficiently to the workplace, thus influencing the quality of health systems and the health of people at the transnational level.This project will involve a sample of students from different degrees in the area of health sciences, both undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as a sample of health professionals with clinical and academic profiles. The design is divided into 4 phases: (1) Diagnostic analysis of the situation and framework of similar experiences, (2) Development of resources and the digital tool HEALTHCOMM SIMULATOR, (3) Testing and analysis of the results and (4) assessment and dissemination of the results. The incorporation of this methodology based on a virtual healthcare environment tool means maximizing access efficiency, costs and learning outcomes, facilitating its implementation from an autonomous and flexible perspective, overcoming physical and temporal barriers. Having this new digital learning resource will make it possible to enhance the transversal competences included in the training curriculum of health professionals from a dynamic and creative framework, assuming a completely innovative approach that provides a digital tool for open use, scalable and expandable to more areas and contents.In addition to this, the development of HEALTHCOMM SIMULATOR, due to its specific characteristics, facilitates the achievement of transferable learning results to the healthcare system. The acquisition of transversal skills in communication skills has been shown to be a key factor in improving the perceived health of patients, improving adherence to treatment, perceived satisfaction in healthcare processes, and therefore, overall, health quality. The inclusion of this tool in the learning of Health Sciences students in the current study plans also enables training that is closer and more faithful to the real world through interactive, reflective and ICT-driven learning, making to the most competent graduates in these skills and more competitive in the workplace.

The digital transformation of health is dramatically requesting the use of digital technology in European health care systems. HCPs are core in accelerating the digital transformation of health. The EU Joint action Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting states digital skills are an important future skill for healthcare workers. Heath care professionals will require knowledge on how to transfer their health related skills to the new digitalised healthcare paradigm. DELIVER inspires to enhance the digital skills of HCPs by supporting the digital transformation of health within European regions.DELIVER target groups are multidisciplinary healthcare professionals and health care managers working in the hospital and/or community care sectors. The overall goal of the project is to enhance the digital skills of HCPs. To achieve this, DELIVER will produce five intellectual outputs: IO1 - Needs analysis IO2 - Digital and Organisational analysis IO3 - Educational program and e-learning toolsIO4 - Health care professionals’ e-learning platform (HELP) for digital skills IO5 - Policy and implementation recommendationsDELIVER will be a collaboration project of five partners from four EU countries: Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, and Italy. The partners have specific expertise, knowledge and research activities in the fields of health, education, innovation, telehealth, e-health, m-health, and in the development of training programs for HCPs.DELIVER is an action research project and produce high quality standard results, DELIVER will apply a co-creation and co-design methodology. Co-creation is a process that creates change by working with people, organisations and communities. It will involve a participatory approach where stakeholders will participate throughout the entire project through four organised dialogue meetings in each country.DELIVER provides high quality digital skills training for HCPs enabling them to achieve essential skills in ICT communication, home monitoring and telehealth solutions and more. The generic transnational educational program, e-learning tools and the health care professionals’ e-learning platform will be jointly developed by partner organisations. DELIVER will directly affect approximately 350-400 HCPs across the four countries as well as indirectly affecting other members of participating organisations and citizens within the local community. DELIVER will welcome all interested parties to the national seminars and the final European conference to share results, lessons learnt and best practices. The health care professionals’ e-learning platform for digital skills will be open and accessible to all Europeans, and provide long-long learning opportunities to enhance the digital skills of health care professionals.

"Evidence-based Practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach to clinical decision making in healthcare that integrates the best available scientific evidence with clinical experience and patient’s preferences and values. The healthcare systems are constantly evolving and becoming more complex. That requires more competent professionals, equipped with knowledge and skills that let them choose the better option for the patient. For this reason, the European Federation of Nurses Associations developed a Competency Framework (CF) based in the European Directive 2013/55/EU, that establishes the minimum educational requirements for nurses responsible of general care. This CF includes as a core competence ""to implement scientific findings for Evidence-based Practice"" (2015). Moreover, the importance of education in EBP is recognised by WHO in his technical guide for Member States: European strategic directions for strengthening nursing and midwifery towards Health 2020 goals (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2015).Nevertheless, the incorporation of EBP into clinical nursing is slow and remains a challenge to the nursing profession. To deal with these changes it is crucial that future nurses and nurse educators (academic and clinical mentor) develop new competences on EBP, learning specific knowledge and skills in this area. However, limited resources are available to support EBP in European Nursing curricula; nurses’ educators and mentors are poorly prepared to teach students the connections between evidence-based practice, decision making, and health outcomes. There is no European framework for EBP competency, and no guidelines for EBP pedagogies.Therefore, the general objective of the project was to foster and harmonize the teaching and learning of EBP in the European Nursing curricula and to produce the acquisition of EBP competence earlier in professional life that can be continued for lifelong self-directed learning also among nurse educators and clinical mentors. Specific objectives of the project were to analyse the current situation of EBP in European Nursing Curricula, to agree on a European EBP Competency Framework and to develop Guidelines on the recommendations for teaching and learning EBP to Nursing European Curriculum. Following the recommendations of this preliminary work we developed a modular online self-learning course on EBP called “EBP e-Toolkit” including a reusable Open Educational Resource library on EBP. The course has been designed as a strategy for learning and training EBP in nursing oriented to undergraduate nursing students and professional nurses. The content has been developed using interactive multimedia tools, videos, clinical scenarios, quizzes, interactive games, examples and multiple activities to facilitate students’ self-learning. The materials have been validated with nursing students with very satisfactory learning and usage results.This project has been conducted by a partnership of six HEIs: University of Murcia, Hellenic Mediterranean University, UNIMORE, Angela Boškin Faculty of Health Care, University of Ostrava and Medical University of Warsaw. The collaboration brought together partners with a deep interest in the development of EBP in the nursing curricula. All of them teach EBP in the Nursing Degree as well as in continuing education for nurses. The Consortium has established the European Nursing virtual Centre for Learning Evidence-based Practice (ENCLEBP) to guarantee the project dissemination and sustainability and to facilitate and improve transnational academic cooperation between European countries and non-European countries.The the European Nursing virtual Centre for Learning Evidence-based Practice and all the resources developed in the project are open access and available in 7 languages: English, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Italian, Greek and Sloven. All the results of the project are free and available here: https://europeannursingebp.eu/ We expect that a great numbers of nursing students, educators and public health services will benefit from the results of this project. Furthermore, we expect to improve the quality of nursing care practice and patient´s health outcomes."

In contemporary healthcare, nurses need to be users and generators of evidence to underpin their practice. As users of evidence they need to be able to locate evidence and critically appraise it. As generators of evidence nurses need to be able to research their own practice and translate those findings into practice. The overall aim of this project is to raise the profile of research in nursing by increasing both research capacity and capability and to enhance cooperation between higher education institution and hospitals. This has the ultimate aim to provide care to patients and families consistent with the best available evidence thereby improving patient outcomes (CMFT 2009). This project addresses two complex issues: the lack of research knowledge among RNs and poor research alliance between hospitals and HEIs. The project consortium consists of hospitals and HEIs that will address these issues jointly. The profile of research in nursing will be raised by increasing both research capacity and capability. Nursing research knowledge alliance will be encouraged through 5 identified objectives:1. to build infrastructure with research leadership that will support a research active environment (analysing nursing work environment and enablers/barriers in facilitating nurses to do research, establishing nursing research groups/units; identifying research mentors within the hospitals and linked researchers at HEI); 2. to improve access to research training and support opportunities (developing online learning programme on nursing research);3. to identify research priorities in practice and link in with HEI to address them jointly4. to encourage intra-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary & inter-agency research collaborations (research group establishment; journal clubs);5. to raise the profile of research conducted by nurses to internal and external organisations (encouraging nurses to submit abstracts to conferences, journals and improve research writing skills.

ProInCa consortium consists of European(4) and Kazakhstan(5) HEIs, and associated partners(13) representing variety of different stakeholders. The project is led by JAMK(FI), and supported by the Kazakhstan(KZ) Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. ProInCa strives for solving the defined problems in KZ nursing HEI and nursing practice: lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing between the HEI’s, health service sector and international nursing research community; lack of capacity of HEI’s teaching staff teaching for evidence based nursing, nursing research and nursing management; absence of nursing research; undeveloped leadership in nursing. The wider objective of the project is to develop the sustainable innovation capacity of KZ Medical Universities for the modernization of nursing. Significant results and long-term benefits are expected within the 3-year project: • Sustainable mechanisms for collaboration and knowledge sharing between national and international academic nursing community and society• Increased relevance of HEI nursing education for the labor market through the implementation of EBN• Strengthened role of Medical Universities in building evidence based nursing research activities in health services• Improved capacity and relevance for the labor market on nursing leadership and management in health care transition• New sustainable system of nursing leadership and management in health care with collaboration of HEI's and Health care facilitiesFour development work packages generate several outcomes, which provide sustainable results as collaborative structures and persistent bodies to the HEIs and health care facilities (e.g. Center of Nursing Excellence, Nurse Leaders´ National Network); national capacity building materials for HEIs and HCF (e.g. nursing research, evidence based nursing, leadership), and reports with policy recommendations (e.g. nursing research infrastructure, nursing management system).