Episode 3: Health Services Research
We are Rose Geurten and Katharina Rosteius, both PhD candidates at the department of Health Services Research (HSR). Rose’s project concerns the care for Type 2 diabetes and what works for whom. Katharina’s project is about Green Care Farms for people living with dementia. We cover a wide arrange of topics, as HSR includes two further research lines, which are Aging and Long Term Care (ALTC) and Creating Value-Based Healthcare (VHC).
The people
The chair of our department is Dr. Dirk Ruwaard. In total, more than 100 people work at HSR! Together, our mission is to improve quality of life, quality and efficiency of chronic care and care of older people.
The research & education
HSR is very practice oriented. To increase the collaboration between science and organizations in the health care sector, three living labs were founded. They work on aging and long term care, public health and sustainable care. The methodologies applied are as diverse as our research topics, using both quantitative as well as qualitative methods. We are involved in several teaching programmes at the university, which are the Master Health Care Policy, Innovation and Management and the Bachelor program Policy, Management & Evaluation of Healthcare track in the bachelor of Health Sciences
The meetings
Our department hosts a range of different meetings. One example is the “Refereerbijeenkomst” of the research line Ageing and Long Term Care where we review each other’s work. Maybe this can be an inspiration for other departments, too?
Another example is the regular events (seminar with guest speakers, journal club, PhD day, presentations rehearsal, etc.) organized by the health economics/health technology assessment researchers in collaboration with the ISPOR (society for health economics and outcomes research) UM Student Chapter. ISPOR Student Chapters have been set up in numerous universities from around the world with the aim to develop future leaders in the field of health economics and outcomes research. If some people would like to get some more information about the activities organized by the ISPOR UM Student Chapter and/or would like to be included in our mailing list, please send an email to Dr Mickael Hiligsmann, (associate professor in health economics and health technology assessment; m.hiligsmann@maastrichtuniversity.nl) and to ispor-sc@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
The interesting stuff
Our department is known for its team spirit! We founded a Team Dynamics group which solely focuses on increasing the collaborations in teams. Also, our committee “conneccie” regularly organizes team lunches, lunch walks or other ‘gezellige’’ events whenever possible.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate do contact Rose (r.geurten@maastrichtuniversity.nl) or Katharina (k.rosteius@maastrichtuniversity.nl)!