Background: During hospitalization patients frequently have a low level of physical activity, which is an important risk factor for functional decline. Function Focused Care (FFC) is an evidencebased intervention developed in the United States to prevent functional decline in older patients. Within FFC, nurses help older patients optimally participate in functional and physical activity during all care interactions. FFC was adapted to the Dutch Hospital setting, which led to Function Focused Care in Hospital (FFCiH). FFCiH consists of four components: (1) ‘Environmental and policy assessment’; (2) ‘Education’; (3) ‘Goal setting with the patient’ and (4) ‘Ongoing motivation and mentoring’. The feasibility of FFCiH in the Dutch hospital setting needs to be assessed. Objective: Introduce FFCiH into Dutch hospital wards, to assess the feasibility of FFCiH in terms of description of the intervention, implementation, mechanisms of impact, and context. Design: Mixed method design Setting(s): A Neurological and a Geriatric ward in a Dutch Hospital. Participants: 56 Nurses and nursing students working on these wards. Methods: The implementation process was described and the delivery was studied in terms of dose, fidelity, adaptions, and reach. The mechanisms of impact were studied by the perceived facilitators and barriers to the intervention. Qualitative data were collected via focus group interviews, observations, and field notes. Quantitative data were collected via evaluation forms and attendance/participation lists. Results: A detailed description of FFCiH in terms of what, how, when, and by whom was given. 54 Nurses (96.4%) on both wards attended at least 1 session of the education or participated in bedside teaching. The nurses assessed the content of the education sessions with a mean of 7.5 (SD 0.78) on a 0–10 scale. The patient files showed that different short and long-term goals were set. Several facilitators and barriers were identified, which led to additions to the intervention. An important facilitator was that nurses experienced FFCiH as an approach that fits with the principles underpinning their current working philosophy. The experienced barriers mainly concern the implementation elements of the FFCiH-components ‘Education’ and ‘Ongoing motivation and mentoring’. Optimizing the team involvement, improving nursing leadership during the implementation, and enhancing the involvement of patients and their family were activities added to FFCiH to improve future implementation. Conclusions: FFCiH is feasible for the Dutch hospital setting. Strong emphasis on team involvement, nursing leadership, and the involvement of patients and their families is recommended to optimize future implementation of FFCiH in Dutch hospitals.
Background: Due to multimorbidity and geriatric problems, older people often require both psychosocial and medical care. Collaboration between medical and social professionals is a prerequisite to deliver high-quality care for community-living older people. Effective, safe, and person-centered care relies on skilled interprofessional collaboration and practice. Little is known about interprofessional education to increase interprofessional collaboration in practice (IPCP) in the context of community care for older people. This study examines the feasibility of the implementation of an IPCP program in three community districts and determines its potential to increase interprofessional collaboration between primary healthcare professionals caring for older people. Method: A feasibility study was conducted to determine the acceptability and feasibility of data collection and analysis regarding interprofessional collaboration in network development. A questionnaire was used to measure the learning experience and the acquisition of knowledge and skills regarding the program. Network development was assessed by distributing a social network survey among professionals attending the program as well as professionals not attending the program at baseline and 5.5 months after. Network development was determined by calculating the number, reciprocity, value, and diversity of contacts between professionals using social network analysis. Results: The IPCP program was found to be instructive and the knowledge and skills gained were applicable in practice. Social network analysis was feasible to conduct and revealed a spill-over effect regarding network development. Program participants, as well as non-program participants, had larger, more reciprocal, and more diverse interprofessional networks than they did before the program. Conclusions: This study showed the feasibility of implementing an IPCP program in terms of acceptability, feasibility of data collection, and social network analysis to measure network development, and indicated potential to increase interprofessional collaboration between primary healthcare professionals. Both program participants and non-program participants developed a larger, more collaborative, and diverse interprofessional network.
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.
Students in Higher Music Education (HME) are not facilitated to develop both their artistic and academic musical competences. Conservatoires (professional education, or ‘HBO’) traditionally foster the development of musical craftsmanship, while university musicology departments (academic education, or ‘WO’) promote broader perspectives on music’s place in society. All the while, music professionals are increasingly required to combine musical and scholarly knowledge. Indeed, musicianship is more than performance, and musicology more than reflection—a robust musical practice requires people who are versed in both domains. It’s time our education mirrors this blended profession. This proposal entails collaborative projects between a conservatory and a university in two cities where musical performance and musicology equally thrive: Amsterdam (Conservatory and University of Amsterdam) and Utrecht (HKU Utrechts Conservatorium and Utrecht University). Each project will pilot a joint program of study, combining existing modules with newly developed ones. The feasibility of joint degrees will be explored: a combined bachelor’s degree in Amsterdam; and a combined master’s degree in Utrecht. The full innovation process will be translated to a transferable infrastructural model. For 125 students it will fuse praxis-based musical knowledge and skills, practice-led research and academic training. Beyond this, the partners will also use the Comenius funds as a springboard for collaboration between the two cities to enrich their respective BA and MA programs. In the end, the programme will diversify the educational possibilities for students of music in the Netherlands, and thereby increase their professional opportunities in today’s job market.
The main objective is to write a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed Open Access journal on the results of our feasibility study on increasing physical activity in home dwelling adults with chronic stroke. We feel this is important as this article aims to close a gap in the existing literature on behavioral interventions in physical therapy practice. Though our main target audience are other researchers, we feel clinical practice and current education on patients with stroke will benefit as well.
Micro and macro algae are a rich source of lipids, proteins and carbohydrates, but also of secondary metabolites like phytosterols. Phytosterols have important health effects such as prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Global phytosterol market size was estimated at USD 709.7 million in 2019 and is expected to grow with a CAGR of 8.7% until 2027. Growing adoption of healthy lifestyle has bolstered demand for nutraceutical products. This is expected to be a major factor driving demand for phytosterols. Residues from algae are found in algae farming and processing, are found as beachings and are pruning residues from underwater Giant Kelp forests. Large amounts of brown seaweed beaches in the province of Zeeland and are discarded as waste. Pruning residues from Giant Kelp Forests harvests for the Namibian coast provide large amounts of biomass. ALGOL project considers all these biomass residues as raw material for added value creation. The ALGOL feasibility project will develop and evaluate green technologies for phytosterol extraction from algae biomass in a biocascading approach. Fucosterol is chosen because of its high added value, whereas lipids, protein and carbohydrates are lower in value and will hence be evaluated in follow-up projects. ALGOL will develop subcritical water, supercritical CO2 with modifiers and ethanol extraction technologies and compare these with conventional petroleum-based extractions and asses its technical, economic and environmental feasibility. Prototype nutraceutical/cosmeceutical products will be developed to demonstrate possible applications with fucosterol. A network of Dutch and African partners will supply micro and macro algae biomass, evaluate developed technologies and will prototype products with it, which are relevant to their own business interests. ALGOL project will create added value by taking a biocascading approach where first high-interest components are processed into high added value products as nutraceutical or cosmeceutical.
