Building the implementation workforce for health and social care Erasmus Project

Project Title

Building the implementation workforce for health and social care

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Implementation science is the scientific study of methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practice and research into regular use by practitioners and policymakers. There are few opportunities for health and social care professionals to gain advanced knowledge and skills within this field (also referred to as knowledge translation). Thus, the European Implementation Science Education Network project (EISEN) was created to develop these skills in health and social care professionals in Europe.

The EISEN partnership consists of five Higher Education partners: Western Norway University of Applied Sciences; Dalarna University and Karolinska Institute, Sweden; Canterbury Christ Church University, UK; Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra, Portugal. In additon, 20 stakeholders representing the health service employers, researchers and implementation experts across our four countries were involved in co-creation activities to ensure that aspects of work relevance were addressed during the development processes.

The EISEN objectives were to:
• develop stakeholder-validated competences and learning outcomes for postgraduate implementation science within health and
social care
• use the curriculum to co-create and pilot test two online courses for health and social professionals: one at master level (7,5 ECTS)
and one at PhD level (5 ECTS)
• develop a Technology Enabling Learning (TEL) concept with embedded ICT methodologies and tools to provide accessible and
attractive learning opportunities
• increase internationalisation within participating institutions through cross-national collaboration
• create a sustained EISEN network for European educators

During spring semester 2021,13 professionals from 8 countries participated and evaluated the master course (EU level 7). 17 European citizens and 5 international students enrolled in European universities qualified for the PhD level course (EU level 8). Both courses were ran online using a tailored Technology Enabling Learning (TEL) concept with embedded ICT methodologies and tools.

In addition, many activities were performed to increase the result quality and impact. An EISEN webpage, and several online platforms were created to support interactive collaboration between project partners and students. A series of workshops were ran to develop the EISEN team’s TEL concept and capability, as well as to agree on appropriate methodologies and tools to use. When students evaluated the courses, they particularly mentioned how the teachers’ strategic use of the tailored TEL methods increased their digital skills and participation in active learning with colleagues who were working and studying in varied health and social services contexts and countries. The participants also told that they will use their new TEL skills to continue collaborating and networking in the future.

When the Covid-19 pandemic prohibited physical meetings, we developed an “EISEN – Implementation Research Leadership Development Needs Assessment” followed by substantial pedagogical methods to compensate for the planned face- to-face learning methods and co-creation activities with international implementation experts. Feedback from the PhD students show that they highly appreciated the skills assessment instrument. Many also told that they had used the insight from this process in future career discussions with their university supervisors.

To further increase the impact, we presented results as invited speakers at the two most influential conferences within the field of implementation science: The Global Implementation Society’s international conference (GIC21) and the European Implementation Collaborative’s conference (EIE21). In addition, relevant websites and social media were used to attract attention and direct visitors to the EISEN website.

All the above-described results are reported and shared via the Erasmus+ Project Results platform, which again links to deliverables that can be downloaded from the EISEN website.

Impact – potential longer-term benefits relates to:
• increased implementation and TEL competence among 35 health and social care professionals with potential for wider spread to
colleagues and patients when the learning is acted upon and shared at work
• increased partner universities’ capability in Implementation science and advanced digital teaching tools, with a potential to expand
this capacity to other teachers.
• due to positive evaluation, the partners have agreed to continue offering joint courses; Karolinska Institute will host the PhD courses and Canterbury Christ Church University, UK and HVL, Norway the Msc courses
• positively influenced national accreditation of PhD programmes for the Norwegian and Portuguese partners
• secured future sustainability and growth by establishing an EISEN educator network within the organisational infrastructure of the “European Implementation Collaborative”

Project Website

https://prosjekt.hvl.no/eisen/results/#msc

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 366542 Eur

Project Coordinator

HOGSKULEN PA VESTLANDET & Country: NO

Project Partners

• HOGSKOLAN DALARNA
• KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET
• ESCOLA SUPERIOR DE ENFERMAGEM DE COIMBRA
• CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY LTD