Improved diabetes patient care in Dubai
bfw - Unternehmen für Bildung • Continuing education of stroke nurses with internships in Germany
bfw - Unternehmen für Bildung (bfw company for education) has been a leading training provider in Germany for more than 60 years. Since 2004, bfw's skills in the health and social services area have been bundled in the maxQ division. maxQ stands for maximum quality and qualification, state-of-the-art knowledge, needs-based offers and long-standing practice. Nationwide in its 26 training centres maxQ employs around 250 people, who each year support 10,000 participants with their training and continuing education. Last year, maxQ generated a turnover of around 21 million euro.
For around 20 years, bfw has been active in projects and networking activities, especially in Europe, but increasingly also in countries outside Europe. The project "International Vocational and Educational Training for the Health Sector Dubai" (iVET4Health) was developed as part of the programme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) called "Export of vocational training services". The bfw's partners on the German side were the Institute for Work and Technology in Gelsenkirchen, the Fraunhofer Institute IESE in Kaiserslautern, vallomed GmbH and University Hospital Giessen-Marburg.
Specifically it focused on the skilled care of diabetes patients in Dubai. With around 350 million people suffering from diabetes, it is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. Care of those affected requires coordinated treatment programmes and the professional handling of complications such as chronic wounds, renal failure and strokes. Dubai has an above-average number of diabetics. In addition, the country constitutes a reference market for the Gulf States and the Asian region.
The strategic aim of the project was the development and testing of training courses according to international standards in order to transfer them to the Gulf region. In the first project phase, a diabetes care and value chain, extending from prevention to complication treatment, was created and agreed with the partners in Dubai. The clinical care provider and the Dubai Health Authority believed that there was a particular need for basic training for Indian nurses, case management, emergency management, as well as for kidney-failure care and stroke treatment as major complications for diabetic patients.
One key focus in the later project phases was on the improvement of stroke care, since considerable success can be achieved here with improvements in the care chain. Specifically, a range of qualifications was to be developed that enabled the nurses working there to work in certified stroke units as "stroke nurses". Within this context, the "stroke nurse" certified further-training course developed by the German Stroke Society (DSG) was adapted to local needs and implemented as a blended learning offering.
The 6-month, 240-hour comprehensive course consists of six modules, includes in addition to a 3-day introduction a self-learning period of around 160 units, and ends with two weeks of practical training consisting of a one-week internship at a certified stroke unit and a one-week classroom seminar.
The complete programme was run for the first time with three nurses from Oman, who participated in internships in Germany, and in August 2014 successfully concluded their training. All those involved - from the participants to government officials - praised the successful transcultural cooperation and communication. Other models are currently being developed that in abridged form and using on-site job shadowing will supplement the costly "full version" with a two-week stay in Germany.
The basis for the project was a previous cooperation between the State of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Dubai Health Authorities. The state government of Rhineland-Palatinate has for several years in collaboration with a network of stroke experts (the "experts in stroke" network) been pursuing the aim of building a stroke-care centre in the Gulf States. Within this context, an initial stroke unit was set up in Dubai in the Rashid Hospital according to German stroke-care criteria and certified in October 2014. At the same time, the partners in the Gulf States have begun to set up a stroke organisation for the region. Meanwhile, the European umbrella organisation, the European Stroke Organisation, has expressed interest in making further use of the training programme in other target regions, for example Russia.
Information
This sucess story was first published in the iMOVE publication Developing Skills for Employability with German Partners • 8 Success Stories from the Health and Geriatric Care Sector
