Anniversary: 10 Years EB Clinet

EB Clinet was founded 2011 by the former head of the Department of Dermatology at the General Hospital Salzburg, Professor Helmut Hintner, and Dr. Gabriela Pohla-Gubo.

Unequal access to care and treatment for EB patients in the European countries and worldwide was clearly the the primary motivation for the establishment of EB Clinet. The founding team wanted to secure the professional care of patients living with EB on site - in their home country, without exhausting trips, without language difficulties, without financial barriers but with high quality and humane access.
The idea was to have one EB expert or EB centre in every country of the European Union as central contact person for requests.

Dr. Pohla-Gubo sent out a questionnaire to 30 clinical contacts (the EU member countries in 2011 plus Croatia, Norway & Switzerland), which was returned by specialists from 24 countries in the first months.
Quite quickly, it became obvious that there is the need for connecting people working with EB not only in Europe but also worldwide, so the focus of the network was extended from an european-centred perspective to a global approach.
As the network was growing in the following years, the original idea of having one contact person per country developed into making EB Clinet a platform for EB-related information for all international health care professionals who are interested in EB.

The initial big networking event was the “1st Conference of EB Clinet” on 5-7 October 2012. 106 participants from 33 countries, amongst them lead clinicians and other senior staff from different Epidermolysis Bullosa specialist centres, gathered at the General Hospital, Salzburg to work together on strategies for the future.
Following EB Clinet conferences in Salzburg (2013) and London (2015, together with the DEBRA International conference) were a wonderful opportunity to discuss the progress of the network such as EB registries, a directory of EB centers and laboratories or education and training in the field of EB.

Strongly convinced that cooperation creates strong synergies, the EB2017 Research and EB Clinet conference were held together in 2017 in Salzburg. Following the motto “from bench to beside” both meetings provided an update on EB research and its translation to clinical benefit for patients.

In 2019 Dr. Sophie Kitzmüller took over the lead of the EB Academy at the EB House Austria and the lead of EB Clinet from Dr. Gabriela Pohla-Gubo.

„With EB Clinet we wish to provide a platform for connection, communication, and collaboration.”
Dr. Sophie Kitzmüller

This new series of web-based informative events for health care professionals working in the field of Epidermolysis bullosa was launched in March 2021. The seminars are covering different topics from different medical specialties. The live-talks give the opportunity to ask questions to experts in the respective field, recordings can be re-watched on our website. The kick-off event with the topic of ‘Oral health care in EB’ is followed by a seminar on ‘Psychosocial development and EB’ and will take place in November 2021.

A very lively part of EB Clinet is the Nursing Forum for EB Care.
Initiated by the EB nurses José Duipmans (Netherlands) and Sharon Cassidy (New Zealand), this online email group intends to support nurses caring for people living with EB. EB Clinet provides an easily accessible platform for the exchange of questions, knowledge and experiences between the members of the group to help improving the care for their patients.
The questions and topics discussed are collected in specific documents accessible to members.
In the last months, especially since the Corona Pandemic, the forum has proven to be a supportive resource to improve the care and treatment of people living with EB.

Since the beginning of the EB Clinet initiative a lot has been accomplished. Strategies and tools have changed, some elements of the network have been stopped while some other new ideas were born and brought to life.

The success of the Nursing Forum for EB Care has proven the importance of our mission to foster cooperation between EB health care professionals. Creating possibilities for further Professionals Forums for different medical departments will be a perspective for the future.

Many efforts have been made to bring together different stakeholders in EB like clinicians, researchers, industry and patients and provide a huge amount of information about the many EB relevant topics at once. Complementary to these large-scale meetings, we also see a lot of potential in specialisation. For this, workshops focusing on a single topic are planned. There a group of experts in their respective field can work together and exchange their knowledge. With plenty of opportunities for discussion these workshops should represent a platform to find new ideas and approaches to unmet needs of patients.

Within the last months people all around the world started to make more use of the various possibilities of communicating virtually and online. Like many others, EB Clinet benefits from this change, which offers new possibilities for education and training. We are glad to be able to work on further EB Clinet Online Seminars to build up a comprehensive basis of online training possibilities for health care professionals working with EB.

Talking about the future always implies development. This is an important part of EB Clinet. Our network of partners is the basis around which we are working to provide health care professionals with information and tools to help improve the lives of their EB patients. This is an ongoing process that, like the EB Clinet initiative, is always subject to changes and further developments. Creating awareness, improving understanding, supporting education in and about EB is key to realize our common aim of finding the best treatments for EB patients.
And, last but not least, hopefully in the future we will be able find at least one health care professional in every country of the world, who would like to become an EB Clinet partner and help to improve the lives of the people living with EB.