On Monday 22 June, the Sustainable HealthCare Workforce team from ESHPM and EMPOWER from Erasmus MC organised a symposium on sustainable healthcare workforce. The symposium was titled “Future-Proofing Healthcare Professionals and Their Work”. Around 100 people attended the event held at Erasmus MC.
The symposium marked an important step in the growing partnership between ESHPM and Erasmus MC around one of the most urgent challenges facing healthcare: how to build and sustain a workforce that can meet rising care demands while supporting the people who deliver care every day.
The afternoon brought together researchers, healthcare professionals, managers, HR and workforce specialists, policy advisors, and practice leaders. The programme combined a joint opening, an international keynote by Cris Scotter from WHO Europe, Pecha Kucha presentations, poster discussions, and interactive dialogue labs.
A central message ran through the day: sustainable workforce solutions require more than isolated interventions. Shortages, burnout, retention, digital transformation, learning and quality of work are deeply connected, and need to be understood across clinical, organisational and system levels. Cris Scotter’s keynote made the point sharply: if we reduce workforce planning to a simple supply-and-demand calculation, we risk missing the deeper system dynamics that create and sustain workforce pressures in the first place.
The five dialogue labs focused on:
- Technology & Change
- Quality of Work
- Learning & Development
- Work Climate & Culture
- Sustainable Workforce & Capacity
Across these discussions, participants identified challenges, promising innovations, and unresolved tensions. These insights will help shape the next phase of the ESHPM–Erasmus MC collaboration, including future research, education, knowledge sharing and practice-driven projects.
The partnership builds on complementary strengths. ESHPM contributes interdisciplinary research, methodological expertise, and educational capacity. Erasmus MC and EMPOWER bring clinical practice, organisational experience, workforce data and a strong practice-based network. Together, the partners aim to develop knowledge that is not only academically strong, but also genuinely useful for healthcare organisations and the professionals working in them.
The symposium was made possible by the EMPOWER Network and the ESHPM Sustainable Healthcare Workforce theme, with the partnership led by Yiannis Kyratsis and Iris Wallenburg (ESHPM) and Anne PJ de Pagter and Judith van Dongen (Erasmus MC).
Our thanks to Cris Scotter (WHO Europe) for the keynote, to the Pecha Kucha presenters and lab facilitators, and to everyone across ESHPM, Erasmus MC and EMPOWER who brought their challenges and ideas to the tables — Madeleine Dijkman, Elizabeth Beekman, Raymond van Hattem, Marieke Kruip, Kjeld H. Aij, Francesca Guerra, Martijn Felder, Marlies Bar, Ana Stojanović, and many more.
The symposium was not the end point of a conversation. It was a working step towards a shared agenda for sustainable healthcare work.
