The International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals was initiated more than 10 years ago with the aim to reorient health care institutions to integrate health promotion and education. disease prevention and rehabilitation services in the curative care. An increasing number of chronic patients, requiring continuous support, and hospital staff frequently being exposed to physical and emotional strains pushed in this direction.
Health promotion is defined in the Ottawa Charter as “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and improve, their health’’.