The Learning Hospitals project is focussing on an environment, in which non-formal/informal learning is permanently taking place and where learning is extremely (partly life saving) important, but where “learning” – as an intentionally activated and professionally designed and controlled process – is hardly considered: Hospitals!
In hospitals, patients who are usually no experts in medicine, surgery, physiotherapy, health preventions, health care etc. get directly confronted with a situation (a hospital stay caused by decease, accidents etc.), in which it is extremely important to learn quickly and successfully about such issues (e.g. how to recover or how to prevent future medical treatments).
Medical and care staff have the same interests: More and more they are forced to spend less and less time with each patient, at the same time medical quality standards have to stay on the some high level. Therefore, medical staff is eager to get its messages across to patients as quickly, understandable and sustainable as possible.
“Learning Hospitals” will define a) which kind of information patients usually have to learn directly in connection with their hospital stay (etc. pre-surgery preparation, physiotherapy, wound treatment etc.) and b) which other health information could be useful to learn additionally (e.g. risks of drug/alcohol abuse, how to stop smoking; prevention of hearth disease and diabetes risks etc.).
We also will define what kind of pedagogic approaches might be most appropriate to increase efficiency of hospital based learning situations (e.g. tutoring, group learning, IT based learning etc.). Special focus will be put on patients with special learning need (e.g. elderly people, patients with migrant background and/or generally low education).
According to national norms and experiences, the 12 highly competent and authentic institutions of the Partnership will define contents, frameworks and standards for successful learning in hospitals. Following that, partners will visit each other in two mobility phases to discuss this issue with local experts/stakeholders and to learn from local best practise features, before transferring and implementing these features in own institutions. All experiences and success stories of these mobility-transfer-and-implementation-phases will be summarized in a final documentation and evaluation report. Naturally, continuous dissemination and evaluation activities carried by all institutions will accompany the Partnership.
Learning Hospitals
