The AAEQ has prepared a EORNA Congress summary, read it below.
Attendees at the EORNA congress gave a very positive assessment of their experience at the
congress.
Surgical nurses from all over the world have gathered at the XI Congress of the European Association of Surgical Nurses (EORNA) held from May 16 to 18 in Valencia, under the theme “Lights of Hope”. The EORNA congress has achieved the initial forecasts of attendees, achieving a total of 750 delegates from 38 different countries with a large Spanish presence with 80 delegates, followed by Croatia with 70 delegates and Slovenia with 60, although nurses from countries outside the EU, such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Qatar, China, Colombia, Japan, as well as the Republic of Korea, have also joined the congress.
A large number of surgical nursing associations from all over the world have been represented at the congress and during the congress; the board meeting of the International Federation of Perioperative Nurses (IFPN) has been held during the congress, where the strategies to promote and encourage the improvement of surgical patient care in terms of quality, safety and sustainability have been discussed. For the first time, AEEQ has been represented in the board of directors. Throughout the three days of the congress, work experiences and improvement of results were
shared and the main challenges of surgical patient care were debated.
This congress has highlighted the main and most representative topics in reference to patient safety, optimal management of operating rooms, quality in the surgical area and teaching. Different forums or debate and networking have been favored, forums that will imply improvements in the body of knowledge of the surgical area and will build bridges of understanding and collaborations between societies and countries.
During the congress there were 4 priority speakers, such as PhD Adelaida Zabalegui, a Spanish nurse who presented during the opening ceremony “nurses as agents of change”; from Belgium nurse Christine Willems explained the MYORCO project, the acronym for “My Operating Room Coach”, a tool that will change the paradigm of the training of future surgical nurses, which, until 2026 will be free of charge.
The second day opened with the speaker Mireia Ladios, Spanish expert in quality, who presented the pillars of quality of care in the surgical patient with innovative strategies to improve efficiency and patient experience.
The third day opened with the Italian EORNA representative Fabio Ferraiulo presenting the results of a systematic review on the use of surgical checklists for the improvement of surgical patient safety.
To conclude, the speaker Sevgi Gür from Turkey spoke about the individual determinants of surgical
nurses in the face of technology and constant innovation in the operating room.
A total of 48 oral communications and 122 digital posters were presented, of which the best 20 were
defended by their authors in two rounds organized in two consecutive days.
The second day of the event in the evening there was the official dinner of the congress that recruited more than 300 attendees and was held at the Marina de Valencia in a fabulous setting and provided an optimal environment for fun and networking.
In this edition, as a novelty in the scientific program, three industry-related workshops were included on surgical patient safety in the field of surgical infection prevention, the importance and characteristics of the surgical glove and safety for professionals in the surgical field, which were very well received and aroused great interest.
It would not have been possible without the magnificent representation and collaboration of the industry with a wide representation of stands where they have shown the most relevant advances in safety, instruments, reprocessing, disinfection or innovative surgical clothing that can be reprocessed reducing the environmental footprint among others.
We would like to thank all the Spanish attendees, members of AEEQ for their active participation in the congress, encouraging the Spanish surgical nurses to prepare and present their work for the next European congress to be held in Dubrovnik in May 2026.
Some pictures of the Spanish Speakers and Board Members.