Healthcare System Design. Professional Degree of Engineering

Transcription

1 Executive Board Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Author Dr. M. K. Matters-Kammerer Date 6 th of February 2013 Healthcare System Design Professional Degree of Engineering Study year

2 Table of contents Title Healthcare System Design Professional Degree of Engineering 1 The profile of the Healthcare System Design Program The profile of the starting trainees Profile of the successful trainee Competences, experiences and skills 4 2 Curriculum 5 3 Timeline 8 4 Cooperation on national and international level 9 5 Interested parties 10 6 Annex 1: Application and selection procedure 11

3 1 The profile of the Healthcare System Design Program The design of professional and consumer health and wellbeing systems is an interdisciplinary process that requires in-depth understanding of the technical aspects as well as of the user requirements. Typically such a process is performed in an interdisciplinary team, where each team member brings in his/her own expertise and a good understanding of the field of the other team members. It is the goal of the Health Care System design trainee program to educate these high level designers and thereby create the innovation potential at the interface between technology and the health and wellbeing area. After their master, the trainees acquire a thorough know-how of the techniques and processes for prototype design and the relevant know-how of the health and well-being field. These experts are extremely relevant for society, when they continue their career in the health-care and well-being industry either in large multi-nationals, SME s or start-up companies. Also, the demographic trend of the ageing population makes it increasingly important to take care of disease prevention by stimulating an active and balanced life-style. Furthermore, to limit the cost-increase in healthcare, innovative solutions for homehealthcare solutions to support active healthy aging and their integration into the healthcare system via ICT requires technical professionals with a thorough background in this application field. It is the purpose of the Healthcare System Design trainee program to supply industry and society with these professionals. 1.1 The profile of the starting trainees The trainees entering this program will have a master degree in one of the following disciplines: Electrical Engineering Computer Science and Engineering Biomedical Engineering Medical Engineering Applied Physics Mathematics Trainees will be selected on the basis of their study-results and their motivation (e.g. their affinity to the Health and Wellbeing domain) and become paid employees of the TU Eindhoven for two years. Their ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams on prototype designs will be evaluated. Typically the trainees will have shown these capabilities during their bachelor and master study. Furthermore the program is open to starting professionals and professionals from industry that desire to have deeper understanding of the health and wellbeing domain for their life-long-learning goals. The acceptance of these candidates to the program will be evaluated on an individual basis in close discussion with their employers. The general application and selection procedure is explained in Annex 1. 3

4 1.2 Profile of the successful trainee A healthcare system designer is a high level academic technical designer, who is specialized in the application field of Health and Wellbeing. Based on a strong background of technology and application understanding he/she can work together in a team of various (also non-technical) backgrounds to solve multi-disciplinary problems. Academic technical in this context means, that the designer uses a scientific engineering approach to solve the problem. Designer in this context means to apply existing knowledge in a structured way. The Health and Wellbeing domain in this context is the broad area of healthcare applications (home-healthcare and hospital/care-centers), preventive healthcare (e.g. nutrition and activity monitoring, balanced lifestyle) as well as demographic focus group related questions (e.g. elderly care, child care). The designer has made significant steps towards a career path and has started building a network in this application domain. Furthermore he/she is well aware of the relevance of entrepreneurial behavior and can present orally and in written form the results of his/her work in a structured and convincing way. 1.3 Competences, experiences and skills Table 1 shows an overview of the competences, experiences and skills that the trainee acquires during the two-year Healthcare system design program. The competences are acquired during the lectures and are strengthened by applying them in industrial settings. Experience in the application domain of health and wellbeing is built up by a combination of projects, exchange between trainees during the summer school and visits to health and wellbeing companies and care providers. In the program there is a significant amount of time reserved to train the personal and professional skills and build up a personal development dossier. Table 1 Overview of the competences, experiences and skills that the Healthcare System design trainees acquire during the program. Competences Experience Skills System engineering Quality and Reliability 2-year experience in engineering design projects in the Healthcare domain Technical writing and editing Project based management Cost awareness Entrepreneurship summer school Presentation training Applied physiology Medical ethics Insights into health and wellbeing industry Personal and Professional development dossier Regulatory aspects of healthcare prototype development Medical equipment and processes in hospitals and home-healthcare Well-being: Structured overview of the topic and related technologies 2 to 3 technical electives 2 to 3 Health & Wellbeing electives Insights into health and wellbeing practice by visits to clinics and hospitals and care providers Entrepreneurship Interdisciplinary teamworking 4

5 2 Curriculum The two year Training program Healthcare-system design (120 ECTs) is composed of lectures, workshops and engineering design projects. The trainees spend 30% of their time at university and 70 % of their time working on the engineering projects, typically in the healthcare industry. The overview of the program is given in Table 2.. Table 2 Distribution of ECTS over HSD program. Part ECTS Curricular part 45 Engineering design projects 75 In more detail, the program consists of 5 modules: Module 1: Technology and design of prototypes (17 ECTs) Module 2: Health and Wellbeing (14 ECTs) Module 3: Professional and Personal development (11 ECTs) Module 4: Innovation and Entrepreneurship (3 ECTs) Module 5: Engineering project (75 ECTs) The compulsory courses of Module 1 and 2 are shown in Table 3 and Table 4. The courses in Module 1 educate the trainees in efficient prototype design, including system engineering, quality and reliability, cost awareness and manufacturability. Additionally the trainee will choose technical electives for at least 7 ECTs according to his/her interest and requirements for the engineering projects in Module 5. In Module 2 (Table 4), the compulsory courses provide the trainee with a selection of medical oriented lectures indispensible for prototype design in this area. This comprises the basics of physiology, and an overview over the wellbeing area, which will be introduced by a series of lectures in the areas of stress and relaxation, healthy consumption, physical activity, social interaction and sleep. To further prepare the trainees for medical prototype design, a lecture on Regulatory aspects of medical equipment development is compulsory. In this lecture, the important aspects, such as documentation of the development process and compliance with regulatory standards will be explained. The important aspect of clinical trials will be introduced in a seperate lecture. Another compulsory course is on medical ethics, to prepare the trainees for future tests of their prototypes in real-life situations. The trainees have to choose electives with a value of at least 7 ECTs. 5

6 Table 3 Module 1: Technology and design of prototypes. Lecture in Module 1: Technology and design of prototypes Compulsory (total of 10 ECTs): System engineering Quality and reliability Manufacturability and cost awareness Colloquium ECTs Table 4 Module 2: Health and Wellbeing. Lecture in Module 2: Health and Wellbeing Compulsory (total of 7 ECTs): Applied physiology Regulatory aspects of medical device development Setting up and interpreting clinical trials Medical ethics Technology and requirements for Well-being systems: Stress and relaxation, Healthy consumption, physical activity, social interaction, sleep ECTs An important aspect of the training program is personal and professional development. This is represented by different components in the curriculum. Lectures will be organized as shown in Table 5. The lecture on Project Based management consists of a 2-day course at the beginning of the engineering design projects and continues during the projects with a number of coaching sessions. In the professional development courses, a number of workshop will be organized on self-assessment, intercultural communication and a number of additional workshops chosen by the trainee. Table 5 Module 3: Personal and professional development courses. Module 3: Personal and Professional development Project Based Management (lecture+practice+coaching) Personal Development (lecture+coaching) Technical Writing and editing Optional: Dutch course ECTs Next to these courses, the trainees will work on a personal development dossier. 6

7 The personal development dossier containing proofs for: technical writing (examples) project management description personal development plan colloquium: presentation + evaluation by audience visits to companies/hospitals/care-provider and impressions summary of networking activities (e.g. summer school, discussions, ) reflection on trends in health and wellbeing (based on journal articles, newspaper, books ) eventually social engagement in health and wellbeing area By this dossiers, the trainees have to take an active role in their personal development and become an active member of the Health and Well-being network. In module 4, the trainees will get acquainted with innovation and entrepreneurship topics, both by lectures and by practical learning. They follow a summer school on entrepreneurship, with general lectures in the area of development of a business plan, marketing&sales, finance, IP and volarization as well as pitch training. Typically the summer school is organized around a topic in the health and well being domain. Table 6 Module 4: Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Module 4: ECTs Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summer school on Entreprenurship 2 Module 5 are the Engineering projects (Table 7). In these projects, the trainees are typically with a company, developing according to the requirements a real prototype in the area of Health and Wellbeing. Sometimes, trainees do a project within the university on the translation of research results into a tangible prototype. Table 7 Module 5: Engineering design project. Module 5: ECTs Engineering design project First and second year engineering design projects 75 Details engineering design projects Key characteristics of the design project are: A clear customer need (to be generated by the customer; to be refined/clarified by the trainee) Clear specification (to be generated by the trainee) Clear planning/action plan Use of design tools Implementation Clear reporting structure (detailed reports on different aspects (specification, plan, literature research, test set up, test results and analysis etc.) are available; at the end a final overview report is written to which the detailed reports are appended) Clear review structure Depending on the requirements of the industrial partner, the duration of the engineering design projects can be adapted. The engineering design projects are a very important part of the full curriculum and the trainees will spend 70 % of their time on these. The projects will be supported by the lectures/workshops from the curriculum and by coaching sessions (e.g. on project management). 7

8 3 Timeline The timeline is shown in Figure 1. The program takes 2 years, in which the trainees spend 30 % of their time on lectures/workshops and 70 % of their time on the engineering design projects. In practice the lectures are organized as blocklectures of one week. On average the trainees spend one week per month at the university. Preferred starting dates for the trainees are in September and March, as this coincides with the semester starting moments at university and leads to a smooth start of the trainees in the curricular part of the program. In discussion with the companies where the engineering design projects will take place, alternative starting dates can be agreed upon. During the engineering design projects, the lectures of Module 1 to Module 4 will be followed up by coaching sessions where the trainees have to show the progress in the respective fields applied to their project. As can be seen from Figure 1, lectures take place from September to June of both years of the training program. If possible, elective courses can be done in self-study, with supporting material, such as video-taped lectures and support by the lecturers. Figure 1 Basic time-line the HSD program for starting date in September. 8

9 4 Cooperation on national and international level The training program is embedded into the Stan Ackermans School of Engineering, organized by the three technical universities in the Netherlands. For 25 year this institution provides 2-year post master education in various fields ( The Healthcare System Design program is a new track within the PDEng program ICT, that is hosted by the faculty of Electrical Engineering at TU Eindhoven. Cooperation with the traditional track is strong for Module 1 and Module 3. Furthermore this program cooperates on lecture level with the School of medical physics and engineering Eindhoven ( The program has a cooperation on European level with the Imperial College London (UK), and with the University of Trento (Italy). Joint lectures and workshops have been agreed upon and trainees can travel to the partner locations. This cooperation is made possible by European funding of the KIC-ICT (Action line Health and Wellbeing) and further extension and cooperation to other places in Europe is foreseen for the coming years. Based on this cooperation, the trainees can follow part of the curricular program, especially part of the electives at the partner institutions. The international exposure is very relevant for the trainees as it allows them to build a strong network that will help them in their future careers. 9

10 5 Interested parties The Health domain has a total available market of 80 billion in the Netherlands alone. Application of new technologies is seen as one major factor to improve efficiency of healthcare and wellbeing while maintaining a high quality. The target of the Healthcare system design program are companies in this field. Many players, ranging from large Multi-nationals to SME and start-ups are active. Many of those will profit from the new training program. As healthcare and wellbeing is an internationally relevant topic, many companies in the world are potentially interested in the program and it is expected, that also the trainees will be a multi-cultural group. The Eindhoven area is known for its large variety of Healthcare companies and the Healthcare System design program continuous to build collaborations with an increasing number of companies. Furthermore the program extends to outside the Eindhoven area with intention to also address companies abroad. The curricular structure with block-lectures lends itself for this, as the trainees can work on the engineering projects at the companies location and efficiently travel back to Eindhoven for the block-lectures only. 10

11 6 Annex 1: Application and selection procedure Application documents: Your motivation and particular interests that you may have An extended curriculum vita including your address(es), telephone number(s) and address. Information about your work experience can be of great value. Copies of your original (B.Sc and M.Sc) diplomas, certificates and lists of subjects with your results as well as their certified (English) translations. Copy of your M.Sc graduation report and published papers (PDF files) The results of your IELTS test (not older than 1 year). The minimum requirement is an average result of 6.5, whereas none of the sub-results (reading, writing, listening and speaking) should be less than a score of 6. A (scanned copy of your passport) In case you already have a Permit of Stay and Work Permit for The Netheraldns, a copy must be sent as well. For an intake in September, we advise you to send your application documents by end of January. For an intake in March, we advise you to send your application by end of September. Please send your complete application, preferably by with (scanned) PDF attachments to: Dr. M. K. Matters-Kammerer Program director Healthcare System design Department of Electrical Engineering, PT P.O. Box MB Eindhoven The Netherlands M.Matters@tue.nl 11

12 After receiving your application we will: Inform you about the receipt of your application Check whether you have sent all documents as required In case your application cannot be accepted you will be informed as soon as possible (we aim at informing you within 4 weeks after receiving your application). In case your application can be accepted from an education point of view, we will contact relevant research chairs and see whether there is a match with an available industrial project If this is positive, a first interview will be arranged with the program coordinator and the research chair that will become your host at university if you are accepted into the program. If this is positive we will ask you permission to forward your application to the company offering the engineering design project A second interview will be arranged with the company and the program coordinator, where you will be asked to give a short presentation on a specific topic (e.g. your master thesis) If the program coordinator, the university supervisor and the company are positive, you will be offered the position as PDEng candidate for the duration of the program (two years). You will a member of the scientific staff of TU/e and will receive a salary in accordance with the government regulations. You will not have to pay any tuition fees, except for books. 12