International exchange policy within the PREFMS

International exchange policy within the PREFMS

For more than 4 years the Regional Pole of Education and Training in Healthcare (PREFMS) of the University Hospital of Toulouse has been open to EUROPEAN and INTERNATIONAL mobilities.
The University Hospital of Toulouse has adhered to the ERASMUS+ Charter since 2014 and has renewed the Charter since the beginning of 2021.

This charter allows us to confirm our policy of openness and exchanges around the world. Right now, it is essential to be able to open up and compare our care practices.

International expertise

The University Hospital Centre (UHC) of Toulouse, with its strong international expertise in health, supports the internationalisation policy of its Regional Centre for Training in Health Professions (PREFMS).
A common policy of international relations in relation to the University has been established for care, training and research. Partnership with the University of Chongqing and its affiliated hospital are a good illustration of this cooperation and openness to international knowledge.

The PREFMS welcomes more than 1800 students per year to become: Nurse (IFSI), Caregiver (IFAS), Physiotherapist (IFMK), Medical Electroradiology Manipulator (IFMEM), Pedicure-Podologist (IFPP), Midwife (ESF), Occupational Therapist (IFE) and Social Worker Assistant (ERASS). This diversity of trainings makes it possible to propose bilateral agreements across Europe as well as outside Europe to develop more and more incoming and outgoing student mobility, teachers and administrative staff and to exchange professional practices and knowledge.

Being part of the consortium of the Occitania Region, gives a complementary impetus to this development of mobilities with a continuous advice, a permanent assistance for administrative and financial procedures.
Thanks to the establishment of our training institutes within the UHC and the complementarity of the health and social field, we favour partnerships with the institutions that link these two sectors of intervention.
Since 2014, the UHC schools have created more than thirty partnerships (Universities or Institutes) through bilateral ERASMUS agreements across Europe including the Baltic countries (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia), Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria and Greece, but also internationally with Canada and Switzerland. We have given preferences to universities that offer the possibility of offering clinical placements for equivalent education and a fair relationship by offering the possibility of hosting foreign students for internships within our various hospital structures. It is a first phase of partnerships signed with the institutes IFSI, IFMK, IFE, IFMEM and we would like to expand on the other schools of the PREFMS.

Thanks to this increase in partnerships, the UHC via the PREFMS will be able to expand its teaching knowledge at the paramedical level, offering a «European» training via the exchange of practices and the expertise of the Partner Universities. The aim of PREFMS is to provide all students with quality education throughout the European Education Area for both incoming and outgoing mobilities.

A sustainable European dimension

The concept developed is the sustainable European dimension which will apply to both the Institute’s staff and its students:

  • For staff (academic & non-academic staff): their mobility is part of the orientation of educational missions in connection with the development of vocational training in the LMD context. Its objective is to develop intercultural skills and to be part of the research and the comparison dimension of practices with a view to improve knowledge and transmit it.
  • For the students concerned: they are either 3rd or 4th year students depending on their curricula with selection criteria validated during the Mobility Commission. Those students’ projects of internship in foreign countries will give a European and international dimension, to optimize the involvement of students in the accompaniment of heterogeneous patients. This will put the learner at the centre of the learning process in order to be able to position and anticipate in a constant changing health environment. Thus, the student will develop maturity and autonomy in the different care situations encountered.

Our current clinical learning structures have been asked to register as key resources in this international development dynamic.

Modernization Objective

The Participation to the ERASMUS+ programme corresponds to an objective of modernising the institution which meets the European priorities of modernising higher education:

  • Raising qualification levels to train graduates and researchers of the future of Europe
  • Improving the quality and relevance of Higher Education: The opportunity offered to do an internship abroad or to come and do an internship within the UHC also corresponds to a performance approach. In addition, staff mobility helps to improve higher education by analysing professional practices and exchanging technological innovations and teaching methods.
  • Raising the quality of work through mobility and transnational cooperation by modernising our various collaborative platforms (Sharepoint, ELFFE). The aim is to establish a rich and productive exchange of practices.
  • Improving governance and funding scheme: with the ERASMUS+ Charter 2021-2027, the development of our European and international network will be increasingly important.

Quality Process

In addition, the PREFMS is part of an ISO 9001:2015 certification process
The quality of training is recognized by the AFNOR in compliance with the requirements of this standard since October 2019.
The international mobility process is identified and defined within the scope of this certification.
Thus, the strategic orientations of those paramedical schools integrate the Erasmus activity, which is also one of the constant pillars of the various educational projects of the Schools and Institutes in Healthcare.