HEALTH CARE SCIENCES

A New Curriculum Begins

On February 1st, 2009 clinical epidemiologist Carine Doggen became a Associated Professor at HTSR. From that moment she and her colleagues dedicated themselves to creating a new curriculum for Health Care Sciences. The newly-restyled Bachelor's programme was launched in September. New components have brought increased year-to-year coherence. "Instructors now know which ground has been covered in previous courses, and students have a clearer picture of how their skill sets are developing; from literature studies to application. But even more important: we have created another balanced programme. Students gain real insight into chronic diseases and their care, as well as the patient experience. They get a much stronger impression of it being about people, not just policy, organisational planning and financing." In terms of content, there is a strong emphasis placed on a more 'joined-up' curriculum. This trend will continue into 2010 with the matching of students to research groups so that every Bachelor's project becomes a logical ending to the course of study.

Reporting Incidents in the Operating Room

"Hospitals rarely allow a look behind-the-scenes," says Professor Wim van Harten (HTSR). In 2009, one of his students, Ingmar Wubben, received permission from a hospital surgery complex to report incidents that resulted from malfunctioning technology. "For one month we ranked every potential danger for patient safety. All of the operations were scrutinised, regardless of whether or not there had been an incident." What was the result? Approximately one in ten operations took place using faulty equipment. Sometimes a pair of scissors were missing, but in a number of cases there was a serious malfunction. Faulty equipment is seldom reported. The operations that were delayed for more than fifteen minutes were thoroughly investigated. According to Van Harten, areas where improvements can be realised include the organisation of resources, reporting, repair and release policies, and retrospective reporting analysis.