Care Simplifiers’: Students Contributing to Optimal Healthcare
Abstract
The present paper documents the joint project of several hospitals in the Netherlands and Avans University of Applied Sciences to improve healthcare through the concept of “Care Simplifiers”. “Care Simplifiers” is a concept that challenges hospital employees to improve their working situation. Students play an important role in this concept, because they are actually working on simplifying care processes, and are challenged to implement their proposed improvements during a 20-week internship period. Their efforts contribute to increasing the quality of care and alleviating work pressure for employees.This approach can be implemented as part of a university curriculum and in a diversity of contexts other than healthcare. The present paper therefore describes how the “Care Simplifiers” project is setup, what the learning outcomes are for the students, what support is provided, what the benefits are for both parties, and concludes with lessons learned and best practices.