IMPULSE INSTITUTE
Evidence based Improvement of Quality and Safety in Healthcare

THE TEAM
Committed to the Cause
Since our founding in 2000, Impulse Institute has developed and grown in a positive direction. We’re very proud of the diversity of our staff, and their abilities to contribute their own unique experience and skills to our success. Find out more about some of our team members below.

MAARTEN VAN DER LAAN
Program Director
Maarten is Vascular Surgeon in the UMCG in Groningen.
In his daily practice as a vascular surgeon he strives for continuous and sustained quality improvement. He is Head of Education and Training at his department and he participates in several national initiatives on quality and safety. His research focus is quality and safety. His involvement in hospital wide and national projects aiming at quality improvement and learning from incidents and sentinel events. He is chairman of Mu the alumni network of the NFU master quality and safety in healthcare.

DAVE DONGELMANS
Program Director
Dave is intensivist in the Amsterdam UMC and chair of the Dutch Intensive Care Registry (NICE). His research focus is quality and safety. He has a keen interest in the design and use of actionable indicators. Apart from evaluating their use in intensive care he is also advising a suicide prevention network in using them as means to evaluate care. His involvement in hospital wide projects aiming at quality improvement and learning from incidents and calamities is his current focus. He is member of Mu the alumni network of the NFU master quality and safety in healthcare

JOB GROENEWEG
Director of Operations
Job is a full professor at the Department of Safety Science, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Technical University Delft. He is a strong advocate of just culture. The development of a so-called "just culture" can help promote openness. In order to gain insight into the most effective way of achieving just culture ", as many factors and conditions as possible that contribute to such a culture must be identified. With the knowledge of social science research about what and how organizations can learn most effectively, the safety of both patients in health care and employees from other fields can be further increased.

KELLY BOS
PhD Student
Kelly is a medical doctor since 2014 and worked as a surgical resident not in training in different hospitals for 3,5 years. She developed a special interest in sentinel events, and quality and safety in general, after being professionally involved in a sentinel event. The topic of her thesis is learning from sentinel events in healthcare with particular focus on the quality of recommendations following incident analyses. She works closely with the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres and the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate and is vice president of the Amsterdam UMC Quality Improvement Academy, Chapter of the IHI Open School of Health Professions.

IRIS REIJMERINK
MD/PhD Student
Iris Reijmerink is an MD/PhD student in the University Medical Centre of Groningen. Her research project entitled “A perfect day: what makes residents burnout” is aimed at the early detection of burnout in residents, the identification of the causative factors, and the role of the medical regulators in physician and especially resident wellness. With this knowledge combined, Iris aims to create preventive measures or interventions in collaboration with the Dutch Health and Youthcare Inspectorate. Iris has spoken about this topic at multiple speaking engagements, among which at the International Forum of Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Glasgow 2019.

FOKIE CNOSSEN
Principal Investigator
Experienced Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Engineering and Medical Cognition with a demonstrated history of working in academia. Highly skilled in Cognitive Science, Human Factors and Cognitive Psychology. Supervised many PhD, Master and Bachelor students.
IMPULSE INSTITUTE
Our Background
Both involved in Quality and Safety in healthcare for some time Maarten van de Laan (Vascular surgeon) and Dave Dongelmans (Intensivist) met each other during a Master Quality and Safety in Healthcare. After they completed this they decided to continue to work together in this challenging field. They work together with various partners from their own institutions (UMCG and Amsterdam UMC) and partners such as Intergo, The dutch health inspectorate and IBMG.


ACTIVITIES
Making A Difference
SAFETY
Research
Sentinel events in healthcare are of great concern. We do research into the question why sentinel take place and what is the quality of recommendations following from investigations preventing sentinel events.
QUALITY
Research and training
Quality of healthcare is an enormous field. Focussing on the effects of human factors together with our partners is one of our strategies.
OUR PROJECTS
Collaborative & Innovative

EDUCATION & TRAINING
We see every challenge as an opportunity, and this initiative helps us ensure that our partners are better prepared to manage unique situations. We are invested in an innovative approach that empowers healthcare professionals and delivers the support they need, when they need it.
We feel that education and training are essential for the knowledge transfer and to achieve the the maximal impact of our work.

IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INCIDENT ANALYSIS
There is a large variety in handling SEs in hospitals or other healthcare organisations, standards for the selection of recommendations are lacking. A next step to decrease the number of (similar) SEs lies in a joint approach to objectively assess recommendations and further define strategies for successful implementation. Selecting high-quality recommendations for implementation has the potential to lead to a decrease in the number of (similar) SEs and increase the quality and safety of healthcare.
This line of research includes various studies in collaboration with Prof Dr Ian Leistikow from the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate and Prof Dr Job Groeneweg from Technical Univeristy Delft

BURNOUT IN RESIDENTS
With physician burnout rate reporting as high as 76 percent, more research is conducted on the development of burnout in physicians. Nonetheless, studies revealed that it is residents, especially in the early years of training, that are particularly vulnerable to burnout. It is therefore of no surprise that the burnout rate in residents is up to 75 percent, and that 10 percent of residents drop out at some point during their training. However, despite these numbers, no guidelines or strategies have been created towards the prevention of burnout in residents.
This line of research aims at the evaluation of causal factors, objective measuring methods and possible preventive strategies.

THE EFFECTS OF STRESS AND FATIGUE ON THE QUALITY AND SAFETY OF HEALTHCARE
In this line of research we aim to cover many aspects of mental stress and fatigue, from physiological changes to serious adverse events, while combining different objective and subjective measurements of mental stress and fatigue. Our primary aim is to create an overview of the precise effects of mental stress and fatigue of consultants and residents on healthcare.
This line of research includes various studies in collaboration with Prof Dr Ian Leistikow from the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate and Prof Dr Job Groeneweg from Technical Univeristy Delft
Courses and Training
- Time is TBDLocation is TBDIn cooperation with Intergo we offer a basic course in safety awareness aimed at healthcare professional. Training can be developed to specific needs or wishes. Part of this is also to provide industry-specific training. Examples are training for OR teams, ICU or ER teams.
- Time is TBDLocation is TBDTime is TBDLocation is TBDTime is TBDLocation is TBDDon't Miss OutIn a learning organization there is the capacity to learn, adapt, change and thus improve. Learning is not only about adapting working methods to errors, but also about gaining insight into the underlying idea of working methods and daring to question them.
- Time is TBDLocation is TBDTime is TBDLocation is TBD

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