Health Care 4.0. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Health Care 4.0.

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

The amount of care- dependent people in Germany has increased steadily over the last year. The German Federal Statistical Office indicates in their latest care statistics from 2017 3,4 Million care- dependent people throughout Germany. This is an increase of 19% compared to 2016 (Statistics of the Federal Labour Office- May, 2019). The demographic development has led to an increased need of caregivers in nursing care. This tendency is expected to grow further. Other European countries are facing similar dramatic developments.
At the same time Germany suffers of a shortage of skilled labour in this sector- without exception in all federal states. The shortage focusses especially on certified nurses. Even though there are initiatives to qualify support staff within the country the current and future demand of qualified staff cannot be covered without recruiting personnel abroad. There are many certified nurses with migrant backgrounds who left their home country and immigrated to European countries such as Italy where they expected to have a more prosper future in the health sector, but lost their jobs due to the economic crises.
Care facilities are increasingly willing to employ qualified personnel from abroad, but require a minimum language level of B2 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). However experiences in everyday work show that this language level is often not sufficient, especially because the language has been acquired in a generic way and not tailor made to the future working place namely the health sector. Furthermore, care facilities report back to nursing agencies that employees from abroad lack an understanding of the culture and working habits of the destination country resulting in misconceptions during daily work routine.
The aim of the project consortium is therefore to evaluate the status quo within partner countries- and determine detected needs in care institutions regarding further training and onboarding procedures of MIGRANT NURSES and sharing of current practices among partners. As a result of this a list of criteria on current practices in health care institutions will be created.
Based on this the partners aim to come up with POSSIBLE SOLUTIONSto tackle the identified skills gap in the light of CREATING AN INNOVATIVE TOOL FOR TEACHING, TRAINING AND DECENTRALIZED LEARNING – possibly by DEVELOPING AN OPEN SOURE EDUCATION SOFTWARE (MOBILE APP) which can be used location- independent. Furthermore the project consortium will analyse how the usage of the EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK ON DIGITAL COMPETENCES OF EDUCATIONS, CITIZENS AND ORGANISATIONS can support this process.

As the project consortium consists of partners, who have not worked together before further aims of this project are to establish trustful und fruitful cooperation among partners, project management structures and a strategy, which can counteract the above-mentioned challenges in the health care sector. Based on this – the project shall lay the ground for a strategic partnership with the production of intellectual outputs (results) to be applied for in March 2021.

The main focus of the project will lie on:

– Building and stabilisation a fruitful partnership and network between the project partners
– Establishment of efficient project structures (project management, method, risk analysis)
– Evaluating status quo within partner countries- detected needs in care institutions regarding further training of migrant nurses and sharing of current practices among partners
– Creation of a list of criteria on current practices in health care institutions and determination of gaps
– Analysis of possible solutions to tackle the identified gap in the light of creating an innovative tool for teaching, training and learning by laying the ground for developing an open source education software (mobile app)
– Analysis of how to create a curriculum (method) adapted to the needs of newly arrived migrant nurses and how this can be then translated in an mobile app
– Evaluating which method could be used for the curriculum and how we can make make the learning outcomes with the tools of the European Union get recognized so that mobility of workers can be fostered.
– Evaluating how the usage of Europass can be used to the advantage of migrant nurses and how an embedment within the educational system could possibly realized
– Evaluating how projects, which have been already carried out, can used as basis/foundation/ support for this project
– Formulation of a result report through the lead partner Europcare constituted of the findings to the above-mentioned points.

Project Website

http://europcare.eu/wp-content/uploads/Pressemeldung-2109.pdf

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 20875 Eur

Project Coordinator

Europcare GmbH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Bürgerhilfe Landesverband Niedersachsen e.V.
• SOCIAL COOPERATIVE COMPANY FOR COLLECTIVE AND SOCIAL BENEFIT -HOSPITAL CARE IN HOUSE
• AGECARE (CYPRUS) LTD
• SYNTHESIS CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION LIMITED
• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH