Interdisciplinary networks enhance care home research

Under the symposium heading "Experiences from how interdisciplinary network initiatives enhance care home research" at 24th Nordic Congress of Gerontology professor Wilco Actherberg from Leiden University Medical Center and professor Claire Goodman from University of Hertfordshire presented their national structures for collaboration between research and care home facilities in the Netherlands and UK respectivly.

In the Netherlands Leiden Medical Centre is leading the University Network for the Care Sector in Zuid-Holland (UNC-ZH) that includes several nursing homes and care facilities in this region. UNC-ZH is a three year old initative and recently recieved a long term funding from the Dutch Ministry of Health. They see the importance of supporting knowledge transfers between research in elderly care and nursing homes.

The aim of the network is to implement knowledge and expertice from research on long term medical care in old people in nursing homes.

- Nursing homes needs reserach and researchers needs access to patiens, Wilco Actherberg said in his speak.

The UK initiative, ENRICH- Enabling Research in Care Homes- had a different starting point than their Dutch Collegues. The ENRICH-project got funded in order to build a national infrastructure. This infrastructure is an innovation to facilitate dementia research in care homes.

- It is important to highlight that we want to do research with nursing homes, not on them, professor Goodmans stated.

The Norwegian initative, ELDERLY-BOTT , led by professor Bettina Husebø at SEFAS, aims at the same sort of collaboration and hence high quality research to ensure that older people will live, age and die well in Norwegian homes and nursing homes.