About us
The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training achieves this through five main tasks. These include identifying needs in practice, research and education, developing education and training activities together, testing these activities and evaluating how well they work. Successful activities are then used in practice. These tasks are connected and together help to continuously improve the education and training of occupational physicians and prepare them well for practice.
Mission
The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training is part of the department, Public and Occupational Health within Amsterdam UMC. The mission of The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training is to strengthen collaboration between research, practice, and education. Together, they improve the training of occupational doctors and the quality of occupational health care.
Partners
We work closely with our learning network of partners, consisting of: Radboud University Medical Center (Radboud UMC), the professional organization for occupational physicians: Nederlandse Vereniging voor Arbeids- en Bedrijfsgeneeskunde (NVAB), educational institutions: Sociale Geneeskundige Beroepsopleidingen (SGBO) and the Netherlands School of Public and Occupational Health (NSPOH), and occupational health services: ArboUnie, HumanTotalCare, ArboNed, and Richting.
Vision
Our vision is to use practice-based education to bring scientific knowledge into the daily work of occupational doctors. In this way, occupational doctors can use scientific knowledge effectively in their daily practice. Together with our partners, we apply current knowledge from practice. We support occupational doctors in training and their clinical supervisors to use evidence in prevention, develop the skills they need, and prepare them for new developments in their profession.
Key tasks
Our key tasks are to develop education and training that meets the needs of practice, understand the needs of physicians in training and their clinical supervisors, and connect partners from research, practice and education. Together, we develop, test, and use new education methods in practice. Through these activities, we support education that meets the needs of real-world practice.
Research
The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training researches how occupational physician training can contribute to strengthening prevention in occupational healthcare. To achieve this, researchers, educators, and professionals from practice work together towards innovations in education.
Research phases
In the first research phase, the learning network of partners chose to focus on prevention within occupational healthcare, with special attention to Periodic Occupational Health Examinations (In Dutch: Periodiek Arbeidsgezondheidskundig Onderzoek, PAGO) and Preventive Medical Examinations (In Dutch: Preventief Medisch Onderzoek, PMO). PAGO and PMO are health assessments for employees. They help to identify and prevent health problems and risks related to work at an early stage.
In the second research phase, medical residents, early-career occupational physicians, institute educators, educators in occupational health services and managers from occupational health services were interviewed. The aim was to understand how PAGO and PMO are used in practice. We also looked at what is needed in the training of occupational physicians to prepare medical residents for this work.
In the next phase, the learning network will work together with partners from practice and education to develop new education on PAGO and PMO. This education will be developed, tested and then used in practice.
Education
The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training aims to improve occupational physician training. Occupational physician education is a medical education program in which doctors are trained to become specialists in occupational health. In the Netherlands, this training is provided by two educational institutes: SGBO and the NSPOH.
During the training, occupational physician residents learn how to promote the health and long-term ability to work of employees. They also learn how to advise employees and employers on sickness absence, return to work, ability to work, prevention and health promotion.
The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training focuses on practice-based learning about PAGO and PMO to further improve and develop this part of the training.
Contact
We believe that practice, science, and education strengthen one another.
Are you an occupational health service representative who is interested in The Academic Collaborative for Occupational Healthcare Training?
Please contact one of our representatives for more information:
Nina Zipfel, PhD
Anel Hasic, MSc