Governance and leadership was the subject of discussion at the second session of the Exploratory Conferences' Autumn Cycle, an initiative of the Institute of Environmental Health (ISAMB), which took place on 20 November and was organized Eng. Luís Alves Monteiro, former President Executive of the Board of Directors of Santa Maria Hospital.

The sustainability of organizations is based on the governance and leadership models that have been adopted, being highly dependent on human capital, that is, those that make up the organization. In a session where the theory was surgically complemented by his personal experience as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the largest university hospital in the country, Eng. Luís Alves Monteiro also defended the centralization of information on the clinical history of patients at national level, in a system combining both NHS and private sector data. And what are the gains for the institutions and patients from such a measure? First of all, the reduction of direct and indirect expenses with health, for example, access to complementary diagnostic techniques. This would allow a patient being treated as an outpatient in a hospital not located in his/her home area, for example, to have clinical tests in a nearby laboratory. Ultimately, this makes it possible to bring the NHS closer to a system that responds more effectively to the specific needs of citizens. When asked about the possibility of salvation of the NHS, Eng. Luís Alves Monteiro answered, peremptorily, that "there is and there must be".

With a vast background in financial sector institutions, Eng. Luís Alves Monteiro is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Francisco Sá Carneiro Institute and Senior Advisor of Boyden Global Executive Search. He is a trained mechanical engineer and, among others, was Secretary of State for Industry, Director General of Industry at the Ministry of Industry and Energy, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Santa Maria Hospital and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of Molecular Medicine. Has also has a vast experience in strategic consulting in the business environment.

The Exploratory Conferences’ Autumn Cycle ends on 18 December with a session on How to Thrive in Unpredictable Environments: The Role of Self-Leadership given by Pedro Marques-Quinteiro, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology (ISPA - University Institute), aimed at students, researchers, lecturers, health and health management professionals, among others!

We hereby invite the whole community to participate

Free but mandatory registration: https://isamb-coord.wixsite.com/ec2019/inscricoes

Additional informations: https://isamb-coord.wixsite.com/ec2019

Francisco Antunes e Joana Costa

Coordinators of the Exploratory Conferences’ Autumn Cycle of the ISAMB