The project reacts on the current situation in VET of nurses, concretely in the field of Moving and Handling (M&H). The current situation is determined by following facts: - Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a serious problem among hospital and home care personnel, and in particular the nursing and care staff. The primary cause for MSDs is patient handling tasks such as lifting, transferring, and repositioning of patients. Regarding the UK evidence, this is an increasing trend and 54% of all accidents in the health care sector are associated with manual handling. The situation in the rest of the Europe is even worse. - Even if there are a lot of programmes for VET in the medical sector, their impact is rather low. There is a gap in the educational and training approaches, which would bring a shift in the training and change the moving and handling stereotypes brought by the old training methodologies. - The current situation in the health sector shows a high dynamics in regard to the new trends and technologies. - There is also a need to react at the changes in nursing education in EU in general. Cross-sectorial work is required and the rapid development of new technologies and its tremendous impact on the health sector should be recognised. Vocational education and training in the field of M&H is of enormous importance for daily work life of nurses. The project aims to transfer an innovative M&H educational programme developed in the UK by the Birmingham City University into 4 European countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania). The main project activities are: - Analysis of the state of the art - Transfer and adjustment of the innovate M&H educational programme to 4 countries - Train the trainers activities - Pilot testing of the 4 adjusted programme versions - Impact evaluation - Final adjustment of the 4 versions of the m&h course - Multiplier events and dissemination - Project and risk management The impact of the project can be seen in several areas: a) Improvement of the educational process and increasing the efficiency of education b) Reduction of nurse injuries especially work-related musculoskeletal disorders c) Improvement of health care processes Project is submitted by the company LINET, number 4 producer of high tech hospital beds worldwide, which is also active in the field of innovative training. Other 6 partners are the Birmingham City University, 2 nursing associations, 1 VET centre for nurses’ education and 2 hospitals.
Project Goal: The project responded to the current situation in nursing staff training, specifically the situation in the field of Moving & Handling. Although there are many VET programs in this area, their impact on the incidence of musculoskeletal injuries / disorders in nursing staff is relatively low. There is a gap in the educational and training approaches, which would bring a shift in the training and change the moving and handling stereotypes brought by the old training methodologies. The aim of the project was therefore to transfer the innovative M&H training program developed by Birmingham City University from Great Britain to 4 European countries (to the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania). Partnership: The main coordinator of the project was LINET, the leading European manufacturer of hospital and nursing beds, which is also very active in the VET of nurses worldwide. Other partners were Birmingham City University as a university that developed an innovative M&H programme, two nursing associations (Czech Association of Nurses, Polskie Towarzystwo Pielegniarskie), 1 nurse education centre (Osrodek Ksztalcenia Podyplomowego Pielegniarek i Poloznych) and 2 hospitals (Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas Clinics, SIHTASUTUS TARTU ULIKOOLI KLIINIKUM). Project activities: The project analysed the current state of education in the above mentioned areas and transferred an innovative VET program to 4 countries. Seminars for trainers were carried out and the innovative M&H educational program was then pilot tested. Afterwards, dissemination events took place mainly through the implementation of local workshops and small scale meetings. Within the project, several transnational project meetings were held. At the end of the project the impacts of the program on the target group were evaluated. In general, the target group stated that the use of these new manipulation techniques with patients greatly facilitates their current work, and the transfer and enforcement of these techniques in the educational processes are seen as entirely breakthrough. The nurses evaluated the training course as very beneficial and the target group agreed that the implementation of the project will increase the effectiveness of the education, the education process will be significantly upgraded and the implementation of these techniques among the medical personnel will reduce the number of injuries of the musculoskeletal system at the nursing staff. Outputs of the project: As a result of the implementation of the project a detailed analysis of the state of the art of the above-mentioned issues was carried out in individual countries. There was also carried out a research of the impact of the educational program, which served as input for the final creation of 4 local versions of the training course. The project ran in line with the scheduled timetable and was successfully completed in September 2017.