University Medical Center Groningen - Wenckebach Institute for Education & Training
Head of Simulation Center
DUTCH - Digital United Training Concepts for Healthcare
Dutch healthcare is slowly grinding to a halt due to a current shortage of healthcare workers and a projected increase in demand for care. This puts enormous load on existing teams to train new colleagues. Meanwhile the capacity to train on the job is limited by the same shortages.
DUTCH (Digital United Training Concepts for Healthcare) is a triple-helix consortium of Dutch university medical centers (UMCs), training institutions, topclinical and general hospitals, (technical) universities and public and private educational and medical technology partners. DUTCH aims for a national transformation of medical training using scalable digital platforms and tools with physical and virtual simulation, starting with programs for nurse anesthetists, operation assistants, and radiodiagnostic lab technicians.
Increasing overall training capacity and shortening the time needed to train new professionals will alliveate the stress on current teams, increasing job satisfaction and well-being.
Biography
Trained as a Technical physician at the University of Twente before starting his PhD research at the University Medical Center Groningen at the department of Critical Care to investigate the measurement and disruption of sleep in the Intensive Care Unit.
In 2018 he got involved in a grassroots attempt to support and expand the scope of the local Skills Center with research and development. In 2020 he became head of the Skills Center, and is now involved in the local, regional, and national development and application of simulation to improve healthcare.
He joined the DUTCH consortium on behalf of the UMCG and Northern region of the Netherlands to co-developed plans to reduce the pressure to train new operating room team (ORT) members by utilizing various forms of simulated practice.