The Needs Assessment Workshop is part of the EPIC (Effectively Prepared in Crisis) initiative, a project launched to strengthen transnational cooperation in health-related crisis preparedness and response across the Baltic Sea Region. By facilitating the exchange of expertise, lessons learned, and best practices, EPIC aims to enhance the resilience, coordination, and overall crisis-response capacity of national health systems.

This workshop marks the beginning of a series that will utilize expert input, group exercises, and shared reflections. Participants will analyze how work ability support mechanisms operate before, during, and after crises, identifying systemic gaps and vulnerabilities in organizational structures. The discussions are anchored in the health and emergency care sector – where exposure to high demands and crisis situations is particularly common – but the questions and insights are intended to be relevant across other high-risk sectors facing psychosocial risks and organisational strain.

The insights gathered will serve as the foundation for subsequent EPIC activities, future workshops, and ongoing work within the OSH Expert Group and the NDPHS.

Participation by invitation only.

Preliminary Programme

11:00-11:30 Registration and coffee

11:30-11:45 Welcome and Opening

11:45-12:30 Setting the scene: Expert presentations

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 14:00 Exercise 1: Framing resilience, preparedness and work ability

14:00 – 14:30 Exercise 2: Mapping the system

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee break

15:00 – 15:30 Exercise 3: System functioning and gaps

15:30 – 16:00 Reflections from group work

16:00 – 16:20 Plenary discussion: Cross-cutting reflections

16:20 – 16:30 Individual reflections and wrap up

The project is financed by the Swedish Institute

Project partners