29th NOVEMBER 2019 – UNIUD Department of Medicine – Press Release
Coordinated by Udine University Department of Medicine
Less errors, safer patients: launch of the project NM4SAFETY
First international training experience to strengthen the skills of Health managers
To minimize human error and to ensure the best patients safety: in one word, NM4SAFETY, the innovative project recently launched and coordinated by the Department of Medicine (DAME) of the University of Udine to make nursing care safer. An important and ambitious goal to which the project, financed by the Erasmus + KA2 program, will be dedicated for 24 months.
Permanent disability and an increase of hospital stay, in fact, represent only a few damages that a significant number of patients, according to the international data provided by literature, undergoes involuntarily during the delivery of personal assistance. Hence, the need to intervene effectively, reinforcing knowledge and skills of nursing staff, which plays a central role in patient care, through those figures that were called in the past “Head nurses”, know today as Coordinators or Nurse Managers.
“It is the first Italian project with an international perspective that has been created expressly for the Nurses Managers who, within an operating unit or a hospital department, have the responsibility of the assistance – explains Alvisa Palese, professor in the Bachelor Degree Course in Nursing at the Department of Medicine and coordinator of NM4SAFETY – Nurses managers are central figures who, in order to manage the delicate challenge of patient safety, need a wide range of knowledge and skills capable of creating a safe working environment, in which best practices of human resources planning and development, leadership, teamwork and effective change management can be shared. Working on the quality of the professional environment also means being able to reduce adverse events and inappropriate nursing care over time “.
The project foresee the development of four phases in cooperation with the Italian company Tech4Care SRL, and with the involvement of three international academic institutions: Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus), Mainz Catholic University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland).
“The goal is to build a training course composed by lectures and e-learning that nurse managers of the four countries will use by accessing a specially created online platform that allows multiple learning systems and sharing of tools – adds Alvisa Palese, clearly recalling the involvement, at every stage of the project, of national and international partners, health, professional and academic institutions and nurse managers – A package of tools will also be developed to improve the organization, the nursing work environment and the patient safety in hospitals and in health care facilities”
