In 1991, the HPH network, which was in the beginning an alliance of experts, launched its first policy document, the Budapest Declaration on Health Promoting Hospitals.
The development of the HPH networks called for a new policy document: The Vienna Recommendations on Health Promoting Hospitals were launched in 1997.
In 2009, HPH has become a global movement with national and regional networks, individual member hospitals and health promotion initiatives on all continents.
In order to realise the full potential of the comprehensive HPH approach for increasing the health gain of hospital patients, staff, and the community, HPH needs to be supported by an organisational structure: Support from top management, a management structure that embraces all organisatial units, a budget, specific aims and targets, action plans, projects, and programs, standards, guidelines and other tools for implementing health promotion into everyday business.
In an open tender process in May 2019, the General HPH Assembly awarded the International Secretariat to the team of Dr. Oliver Grone at OptiMedis AG.
The new International Secretariat has grown the HPH membership base to include health institutions other than hospitals and has broadened the objective of the network in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.