The Danish Committee for Health Education (DCHE) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, which was founded in 1964. More than 40 people are currently employed in DCHE.
DCHE has close working relations with public authorities like the Danish Ministry of Health, the National Board of Health and private organizations in the health field. The membership organizations are primarily professional associations in the health field and the associations of county councils and local authorities.
DCHE has worked extensively with patient empowerment during the last 10-15 years and gained solid expertise in developing, implementing and evaluating patient education, where the trainers consist of health professionals as well as volunteers of non-health professionals.
DCHE has been implementing these programmes in almost all 98 municipalities and at several hospitals in Denmark – using a combination of research, events, engagement activities, and political analysis to also create European impetus, e.g. by the founding of ENOPE – the European Network on Patient Empowerment – leading the PiSCE project, participating in the PRO STEP project, and now being the Danish representative in the Joint Action CHRODIS+.
As an additional spin off to continued dialogue and interest in the support of self-care as a healthcare priority, DCHE has led the establishment of Self-Care Initiative Europe – an international network of organisations now approved as the official self-care forum by DG Sante on the EU Health Policy Platform.
In patient empowerment and infection prevention, close cooperation with relatively autonomous Danish municipalities and their HCPs have been central in recruiting and engaging citizens.