Conference: Informal caregivers, patients and professionals: a dream team?! | 30 October

Increasing numbers of patients not only receive care from medical professionals but also from informal carers. This requires careful mutual co-ordination. How does it work in practice with these ‘care teams’? What are the issues and solutions? Expertise Centre Healthwise organises its annual conference on this subject on Friday 30 October at the Faculty of Economics and Business.

Participation is interesting for managers, professionals and researchers in the care sector, academia and the world of policy-making. Keynote speakers are Professor Edward Norton (University of Michigan), Mr. Marius Buiting (Director NVTZ –supervisory authority care and welfare) and Professor Sophia de Rooij (geriatrics UMCG). In addition, in workshops experiences of innovative organisations will be discussed and academic researchers will share their views on these experiences.

“My body and my life”

Examples from practice show how things are usually done nowadays. Patient Jannie Oskam had both good and bad experiences: “Together with my husband and my doctor we were our very own dream team”, she says. “My doctor understood really well that I wanted to be in charge. He guided me through the medical information so that I was better placed to choose from possible treatments, planning and how we would adjust these if things did not go according to plan. And if at a given moment I was unable to think properly and my emotions got the better of me my husband calmly kept on focusing on the facts.”

This patient also experienced a different approach: “Another doctor said: “this is how we are going to do it”. No discussion. That made my hair stand on end. Because this is my body and my life we are talking about.”

Governance dilemmas

In one of the workshops researchers Manda Broekhuis and Marjolein van Offenbeek will examine examples of care provider Espria, together with Director Ester Kuiper. Van Offenbeek: “In the collaboration between professionals, informal carers and patients tension can arise between different perspectives, standards, values, sources of information and interests. This can lead to difficult governance dilemmas for the professional organisations involved. In this workshop we will deal with some of these dilemmas in more detail.”

Further information

• For more information and registration: website Healthwise (normal rate: €200, FEB alumni, UMCG employees and employees of universities: €125).
• Questions: Gerdien Regts-Walters, cpheb rug.nl , 050-3639090.

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