Regional hospitals invest in joint research Four new projects in promotion fund

This year, four more research projects have been honored in the promotion fund of the Radboudumc and the regional hospitals. The research projects, which are a collaboration between CWZ, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Rijnstate, the Sint Maartens Clinic and Radboudumc receive a joint contribution of 240,000 euros. The (online) announcement took place on November 4.

In order to stimulate cooperation between the regional hospitals, a promotion fund was started in 2016. From this fund the hospitals finance joint research. In the past years 19 projects have been financed.

On November 4, the awarded projects for 2021 were announced. The following four projects will start within this fund.

Paul Voorhoeve (CWZ)  & Giesje Nefs (Radboudumc)

Project title: Jong geleerd is oud gedaan: Coaching children towards diabetes self-care independence.

The project focuses on “innovative, person-centered network care”. KDCN is spindle in a broader diabetes care network including primary/home/complex care and regular/special schools. The project strengthens opportunities for supporting diabetes self-care independence throughout this network, translating our coaching tools to concrete strategies for individual care partners. It places the parent-child working relation center-stage. Family and health professional representatives were closely involved in initial tool design. We continue with active participatory research involvement. Our tools are acknowledged by NDF and received prizes for their innovative contribution to care and quality of life. Participation safeguards meaningful outcomes, successful implementation, and sensitivity to diversity and context.

Babette van der Zwaard (JBZ) & Marcel Olde Rikkert (Radboudumc)

Project title: The Joint Resilience Study: optimizing outcomes of JOINT replacement patients through RESILIENCE management.

The proposed work will advance personalized medicine in JRS by adopting a novel resilience perspective, taking into account physical, mental and social aspects of well-being. The outcomes will provide clinicians with a much needed tool to triage for elective JRS. Resilience monitoringallows for more targeted network care during the pre- and post-surgery stages to optimize recovery. Moreover, resilience monitoring improves identification of patients with a high risk of failing to recover, in whom surgery may even be harmful.

Frank Bosch (Rijnstate) & Jurgen Claassen (Radboudumc)

Project title: Better defining resilience of elderly in acute medicine to optimize decisions.

Main objective of this project is to empower physicians at the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) in the initial evaluation of older patients and to optimize decision-making around safe discharge to home or follow-up hospital trajectory. For this purpose, we replace periodic observation by CM with wearable devices to improve insight into the clinical situation and to develop and test a technically and clinically feasible resilience monitor, based on the response of vital parameters tosystemic therapy during the first 48 hours.

Ilse van Nes (SMK) & Maria Hopman (Radboudumc)

Project title: Personalized and innovative training strategies in the rehabilitation center and at home to improve cardiopulmonary fitness and quality of life in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI).

As the population of patients with a spinal cord injury is changing from young individuals with a complete lesion to older patients with an incomplete lesion1, we have to innovate our rehabilitation programs. Specifically, we need to focus on gait training (given the wider functional abilities with incomplete lesions) and add strength training (given the higher age). This research project will be able to introduce new training programs with superior effects on cardiopulmonary fitness of individual patients compared to regular care. Expected is that this improves general health, quality of life and life expectancy of patient with incomplete SCI.