New professors
All screenings cause harm, some are useful
A screening app on your phone that monitors your breath during the night in search for disease. For some people that may sound like a dream, for me it sounds like a nightmare for now.
With screening you look for disease in a group of apparently healthy people with the aim of detecting the disease at an earlier stage and thus improving the prognosis of patients. However, the likelihood of someone without symptoms being sick is small, while everyone who is screened is exposed to the harms of screening, including false positive test results. Current breath tests, for example, give a false-positive result in about 1 out of 10 times. This means that if you monitor people daily with a screening app, after about 2 months almost everyone will have experienced a false alarm at least once. In my field of research, decision modelling of screening, we try to inform policymakers, clinicians and the general population about the benefits, harms, costs and preconditions for these and other new developments in screening, while also examining their impact on healthcare capacity and the environment.
Iris Lansdorp-Vogelaar
Professor of Evaluation of Screening
I enjoy creating a learning environment in which people can develop and flourish. I am happy and proud that I can now represent our department and the institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR) as a professor of Innovation of Health Professions Education.
iMERR conducts scientific research in health professions education and supports evidence-based innovations in education to ensure that the training of (future) health professionals meets the needs of society. Thereby we contribute to education quality and, consequently, to the quality of healthcare.
iMERR was founded as a separate entity within the Desiderius School, the Erasmus MC education department, in 2014. During this decade, iMERR has established itself as a high-quality research institute with international recognition. From 2023, iMERR is officially part of the Department of Public Health. Participation in the Department of Public Health will further support iMERR in generating impact on health professions education. We aim to contribute to enabling students, teachers, and health professionals to develop the skills and competencies necessary to address challenges in healthcare, including patient safety, the implementation of technology, the increasing diversity in our patient population, as well as equity and accessibility in health professions education and healthcare.
I am very much looking forward to an intensive collaboration with our colleagues from the Department of Public Health on research as well as education.
Andrea Woltman
Professor of Innovation of Health Professions Education
Director institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR)
Healthcare is getting stuck. But the people in healthcare are also getting stuck. People who are seriously ill and their loved ones are increasingly expected to take up responsibility for their health and care. However, for many of them it is very complicated to navigate the complexities of healthcare.
An important part of the "work" that comes with being ill is finding, understanding and getting appropriate treatment and care. This has been defined as treatment and care that are consistent with a patient’s values and preferences, and also have a big enough chance of improving well-being, all at reasonable cost and without causing too much harm.
We have long known that approaches such as shared decision-making and advance care planning have the potential to contribute to appropriate, person-centered care and support. But we also know that shared decision-making and advance care planning often don't happen. This is partly because the barriers lie not only in the clinical encounter (where most interventions focus on), but also in the wider system where these shared decision making and advance care planning conversations take place. In fact: healthcare has become an increasingly complex system, in which individuals can oversee and control only a small part: an example of a “wicked problem”.
I work as a professor of "Design for Public Health" at the Department of Public Health at Erasmus MC, and at the Faculty of Industrial Design at TU Delft. My research and teaching focus on understanding and improving person-centered care, through designing, evaluating and implementing interventions that e.g. address advance care planning and shared decision making. In doing so, I mostly work intradisciplinary and apply methods from the design sciences and health sciences.
Judith Rietjens
Professor of Medical Care and Decision Making at the End of Life