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In Memoriam – Dr Jannicke Mellin-Olsen
We are deeply saddened to share that Dr Jannicke Mellin-Olsen, Past President of the European Board of Anaesthesiology (EBA), passed away at home on 6th February 2025.
Jannicke was a global leader in anaesthesiology and an inspiration to all who had the privilege of knowing her. She dedicated her life to patient safety, a passion that began during her medical residency at Trondheim University and continued throughout her remarkable career.
She served as Secretary of the European Board of Anaesthesiology before being elected as its first female President. In 2008, she established Patient Safety as an EBA Standing Committee. Two years later, in 2010, she played a pivotal role in developing and launching the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology, signing it as EBA President. Through her tireless advocacy, the declaration gained global recognition, with over 200 national societies, patient organizations, and industry partners signing on.
Jannicke’s leadership extended beyond Europe. She held multiple roles within the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA), ultimately serving as its President from 2018 to 2020. That same year, she was awarded Honorary Memberships of both the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC) and the Association of Anaesthetists.
She was a passionate advocate for a non-punitive approach to medical errors, emphasizing the vital role of patients, relatives, and clinical staff in improving safety. Her contributions were recognized at the highest level in 2021 when she was appointed to the Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav, Norway’s highest civilian honor, for her services to healthcare.
Jannicke also served on the Governance Board of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, always championing patient safety with enthusiasm, integrity, and boundless energy.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Jannicke was widely loved for her vivacious personality, brightly colored clothes, and distinctive voice. Her presence lit up every room, and she brought joy to all who had the privilege of working with her.
She will be profoundly missed by her colleagues, friends, and the entire anaesthesiology community.
The European Professional Development Module (PDM) in Pain Medicine for Anaesthesiologists has been unanimously approved at the Autumn UEMS Council Meeting on October 19, 2024, in Brussels.
Congratulations to the authors for producing these high-quality documents aimed at harmonizing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the specialty of Anaesthesiology!
19th October 2024
World Anaesthesia Day 2024!
Dear Colleagues,
On this World Anaesthesia Day, we warmly congratulate each of you! This day is an opportunity to recognize the significance of our work and the lasting impact it has on the patients and communities we serve. Together, we embody the highest standards of professionalism and compassionate care.
Wishing you all the very best on World Anaesthesia Day.
Sincerely,
The EBA Executive Team
16th October 2024
The European Board of Anaesthesiology wishes to give its wholehearted support to the WHO World Patient Safety Day on 17th September 2024.
"Get it right, make it safe!"
World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to raise public awareness and foster collaboration between patients, health workers, policymakers and health care leaders to improve patient safety.
This year the theme is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” with the slogan “Get it right, make it safe!”, highlighting the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes.
Anaesthesiology is acknowledged to have made significant improvements in Patient Safety particularly through the implementation of clinical monitoring which can help the early diagnosis of potentially harmful conditions in the perioperative period and “make it safe”. However there is still progress to be made “getting it right.” For example when using Capnography human factors can still delay the identification of inadvertent oesophageal intubation resulting in death or major morbidity for patients. Globally in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries where this established technology still not widely available many patients and their families are still be harmed by unrecognised oesophageal intubation. We fully support and encourage all possible efforts to “Get it right, make it safe!”, by implementing Capnography Globally [2}.
The 2010 Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology [1] stated that: -
Patients have a right to expect to be safe and protected from harm during their medical care and anaesthesiology has a key role to play improving patient safety perioperatively. To this end we fully endorse the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists International Standards for a Safe Practice of Anaesthesia.
There are also opportunities for “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” when caring for patients in Intensive Care and Pain Medicine.
Improving Patient Safety through better diagnosis and other means remains a key issue for the users and funders of healthcare systems. The OECD estimate 15% of Health Budgets are spent on managing Adverse Events and so apart from protecting countless patients’ lives and health, billions of euros could be saved each year as well.
Dr David Whitaker
Chair of the EBA Patient Safety Committee
Prof Olegs Sabelnikovs
President EBA
Reference
- Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology. European Board of Anaesthesiology 2010 https://journals.lww.com/ejanaesthesiology/fulltext/2010/07000/the_helsinki_declaration_on_patient_safety_in.3.aspx
- Global Capnography to Improve Safety for All Patients: Time for Urgent Action O’Sullivan, Ellen P. MBBCh, FRCA, FCAI; Nabukenya, Mary T. MB; Newton, Mark MD Anesthesia & Analgesia 137(5):p 917-920, November 2023. | DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000006735
07/02/2023
EBA Statement on Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
23/12/2022
Dear colleagues, dear friends,
a heartfelt thank you for your hard work and another year of fruitful collaboration.
The passing year saw the return of the irreplaceable congeniality of direct meetings and we hope to uphold it in the year to come.
Wishing you and your dear ones a Merry Christmas and a joyful Holiday season!
Yours,
The EBA Executive team
03/12/2022
EBA Autumn meeting
2-3 December, 2022
(Zagreb, Croatia)
16/10/2022
Dear colleagues, October 16th is World Anaesthesia Day
The focus this year is on Medication Safety. Being leaders in perioperative patient safety we anaesthesiologists have an obligation to serve as role models and share that knowledge and expertise with our colleagues and coworkers.
To facilitate the implementation of a culture of medication safety the EBA published Recommendations for Safe Medication Practice:
The EBA also fully supports the WFSA campaign to emphasize the importance of Medication Safety and increase the visibility of the role anaesthesiologists play in providing a safe environment for patients
Happy WAD 2022!
17/09/2022
The European Board of Anaesthesiology (EBA) fully supports the WHO World Patient Safety Day 17th September 2022.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of avoidable harm in health care across the world and ‘Medication Safety’ has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2022, reaffirming the objectives of the WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: ‘Medication Without Harm’ launched in 2017. https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-patient-safety-day/2022
This focuses on the priority areas of medication safety: high-risk situations, transitions of care, polypharmacy (concurrent use of multiple medications) and look-alike, sound-alike medications, all particularly applicable to Anaesthesiology. The European Board of Anaesthesiology responded to this by publishing Recommendations for Safe for Safe Medication Practice.
The EBA wishes to promote these recommendations to help reduce high burden of medication-related harm due to medication errors and unsafe practices. Additionally they include a 13-point checklist all hospitals can use to monitor the implementation of these simple and achievable measures. Prof Oleg Sabelnikovs, EBA President said “According to WHO, medication harm accounts for 50% of the overall preventable harm in medical care and we advocate urgent action through adopting the EBA guidelines to improve medication safety.”Dr David Whitaker, Chair of the EBA Patient Safety Committee, commenting on the WHO initiative, said: “Great opportunities exist to reduce and remove human factor errors in medication safety through better pharmacy procurement of safer, end-user friendly medicine preparations, avoiding preparations that look and sound alike which can easily be confused with others, using ready-to-administer prefilled syringes and standardisation of work surfaces and medication processes.”
Any enquires about this Press Release please contact EBA Secretariat email: secretary@eba-uems.eu
30.04.2022.
ETR update 2022 from task-force of EPD has just been approved by UEMS Council.
Congratulations!!!
2021