The use of the Zora robot was monitored and evaluated in 14 nursing care organizations (15 locations). The Zora robot, a Não robot with software, is designed as a social robot and used for pleasure and entertainment or to stimulate the physical activities of clients in residential care. In the first year, the aim was to monitor and evaluate how the care robot is used in daily practice. In the second year, the focus was on evaluating whether the use of Zora by care professionals can be extended to more groups and other type of clients. Interviews, questionnaires and observations were used as instruments to reveal the progress in the use of the robot and to reveal the facilitators and barriers. Care professionals experienced several barriers in the use of the robot (e.g., start-up time and software failures). The opportunity they had to discuss their experience during project team meetings was seen as a facilitator in the project. Furthermore, they mentioned that the Zora robot had a positive influence on clients as it created added value for the care professionals in having fun at work.
There is an increasing call in society for the improvement of well-being for nursing home residents and the support of care professionals through a wide array of architectural and technological solutions that are available in modern nursing homes. This study investigated which of these solutions are considered essential by stakeholders from healthcare and technology. Data were gathered via 22 simultaneously held multidisciplinary mind map sessions with 97 stakeholders, resulting in 43 mind maps. These, in turn, were grouped into a single mind map of the nursing home in general, the private rooms for residents with somatic or psychogeriatric health problems, and the group living room. A prioritization of solutions was added. The contents of the mind maps reflect a Dutch consensus on the necessary architectural and technological features for the design of nursing homes.
Background: Transmural palliative care interventions aim to identify older persons with palliative care needs and timely provide advance care planning, symptom management, and coordination of care. Nurses can have an important role in these interventions; however, their expertise is currently underused. A new transmural care pathway with a central role for the community care registered nurse in advance care planning aims to contribute to the quality of palliative care for older persons. Objective: To examine the perspectives of community nurses on the feasibility of a new transmural care pathway for advance care planning for older persons. Design: A qualitative study design using semi-structured interviews. Setting(s): Interviews were performed with community nurses of three participating homecare organizations in the Netherlands between March and May 2023. Participants: 19 community nurses. Methods: A topic guide was based on (1) challenges in advance care planning identified from the literature and (2) concepts that are important in assessing the feasibility of complex healthcare interventions provided by the Normalisation Process Theory framework. A combined inductive and deductive thematic analysis was performed. Results: Four themes were identified: views on the transmural care pathway, community nurses’ needs to fulfil their role, key points regarding implementation, and evaluation of the new practice. In general, community nurses were positive about the feasibility of the new practice as it provided a more structured work process that could facilitate interprofessional collaboration and improve the quality of palliative care. Overall, the feasibility of the new practice, from community nurses perspective, was determined by (1) clear roles and responsibilities in the transmural care pathway, (2) standardized registration of advance care planning, and (3) close involvement of community nurses in the whole implementation process. Conclusions: We highlighted important factors, from the perspectives of community nurses, that need to be considered in the implementation of a new transmural care pathway for advance care planning. A clear division of roles and responsibilities, standardized registration of advance care planning, and involvement of community nurses during the whole implementation process were mentioned as important enabling factors. This knowledge might contribute to successful implementation of a transmural care pathway that aims to enhance the quality of palliative care for older persons. Tweetable abstract: Community nurses’ perspectives on the feasibility of a transmural care pathway for advance care planning for older persons.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
"Zoekt en gij zult vinden", luidt de bekende uitdrukking. Het Nederlandse MKB heeft veel technieken beschikbaar die voor een bekend probleem in Nederlandse verpleeghuizen een oplossing kan bieden: er raken in verpleeghuizen veel zaken zoek, van hulpmiddelen tot meubilair, wat leidt tot vele uren zoektijd voor zorgprofessionals en bewoners (met dementie) en hun naasten, en wat een negatieve invloed heeft op kwaliteit van zorg en onderhoud. Het doel van dit projectvoorstel is om een oplossing te ontwikkelen voor het zoekraken, niet in kaart hebben en het onbekend zijn met het gebruik, van hulpmiddelen in verpleeghuizen. Er bestaat zogenaamde track & trace technologie om locatie en gebruik van zaken te monitoren. Hoewel deze technologie op terreinen bouw, logistiek en ziekenhuiszorg in opkomst is, wordt deze in verpleeghuizen nog niet grootschalig ingezet. Er is bij bedrijven onvoldoende kennis over hoe deze technologie succesvol kan worden ingezet in verpleeghuizen waarbij de behoeften van zorgprofessionals en bewoners aan de basis van het ontwerp liggen. De maatschappelijke relevantie iets aan de problematiek te doen is niet alleen ingegeven door een behoefte de kwaliteit van zorg te ondersteunen, maar ook om geld te besparen door zoektijd te verminderen, en om beheer- en onderhoud van hulpmiddelen beter te kunnen stroomlijnen (logistiek en financieel) doordat bedrijven en verpleeghuizen een beter inzicht hebben in het gebruik. In dit project wordt met MKB-partners met een achtergrond in elektrotechnische installaties, ICT, bouw en inrichting en hulpmiddelen samengewerkt aan het ontwerpen en evalueren van een ?demonstrator?: een start van een field lab track & trace van hulpmiddelen voor zorginstellingen met twee testlocaties in verpleeghuizen. Dit doen deze partijen samen met twee verpleeghuisorganisaties en hun professionals teneinde een systeem te ontwikkelen dat aansluit bij de behoeften van de werkvloer en derhalve de grootste meerwaarde heeft voor de stakeholders. Hierbij zullen verschillende werkvormen worden gebruikt waarbij de nadruk ligt op de inbreng van alle betrokkenen. Door middel van focusgroep- en ontwerpsessies zullen stakeholders de behoeften op het gebied van track & trace van roerende goederen kunnen definiëren en omzetten in een concreet ontwerp. Het eindresultaat van het project zal naast concrete kennis vooral bestaan uit een tweetal demonstrators die met aanpassing ook in andere zorgsettings ingezet kunnen worden om kwaliteit van zorg en werkprocessen te ondersteunen. Deze demonstrators zullen tevens dienen als platform voor vervolgexperimenten.
To optimize patient care, it is vital to prevent infections in healthcare facilities. In this respect, the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains threatens public healthcare. Current gold standard techniques are based on classical microbiological assays that are time consuming and need complex expensive lab environments. This limits their use for high throughput bacterial screening to perform optimal hygiene control. The infection prevention workers in hospitals and elderly nursing homes underline the urgency of a point-of-care tool that is able to detect bacterial loads on-site in a fast, precise and reliable manner while remaining with the available budgets. The aim of this proposal titled SURFSCAN is to develop a novel point-of-care tool for bacterial load screening on various surfaces throughout the daily routine of professionals in healthcare facilities. Given the expertise of the consortium partners, the point-of-care tool will be based on a biomimetic sensor combining surface imprinted polymers (SIPs), that act as synthetic bacterial receptors, with a thermal read-out strategy for detection. The functionality and performance of this biomimetic sensor has been shown in lab conditions and published in peer reviewed journals. Within this proposal, key elements will be optimized to translate the proof of principle concept into a complete clinical prototype for on-site application. These elements are essential for final implementation of the device as a screening and assessment tool for scanning bacterial loads on surfaces by hospital professionals. The research project offers a unique collaboration among different end-users (hospitals and SMEs), and knowledge institutions (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Fontys University of Applied Sciences and Maastricht Science Programme, IDEE-Maastricht University), which guarantees transfer of fundamental knowledge to the market and end-user needs.
