AnneLoes van Staa, winner of the Delta Premium: "There is nothing more research-worthy than practice"

Dr. AnneLoes van Staa is a lecturer in Transitions in Care at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and a member of the Scientific Council of Medical Delta. In November she - together with colleague Mark Mobach of Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen - received the first Delta premium from Minister Van Engelshoven.

The premium of € 500,000 is awarded to lecturers who make a valuable contribution to society with their research groups, thereby bringing the phenomenon of 'lecturer' to the attention. The money is allocated to the Van Staa research group, which wants to recruit at least two PhD students and also wants to link more senior research capacity to its research group.

You are the first lecturer to receive the premium. Why is this price important?

The position of lector is relatively new. This has only been around twenty years and is part of a transition in higher professional education. Universities of applied sciences make a switch from an educational institution that focuses on professional practice to a knowledge institution. Research becomes a permanent part within and alongside educational practice.

I think we have received the premium because we show that you can do scientific research in universities of applied sciences. And that this contributes to both education and practice.

Scientific research has long been an academic affair. What is the added value of universities of applied sciences as a knowledge institute?

Higher education in the Netherlands is set up as a binary system. As a result, there is a fairly large gap between universities of applied sciences and academic universities. The academic university used to be for science and in universities of applied sciences you were traditionally trained for practice. Doing research there was really nonsense. But in recent years there has been an enormous development going on: the practice must be fed by knowledge. And the other way around, practice should constantly raise new questions: why do you do what you do? Is that good, and how do you know? These types of questions lead to practice-oriented research questions. There is nothing as valuable as practice.

Is it possible to bridge the gap between universities of applied sciences and academic universities?

Yes, I prefer to see it as a continuum than as a divide. Our research complements each other. In universities of applied sciences, for example, we focus on wondering why things developed in a lab don't work in practice, or just don’t work. That curiosity is practical.

You are on the Medical Delta scientific council. What role can Medical Delta play in pursuing the continuum?

I think Medical Delta can get even closer to the end user by further broadening to universities of applied sciences. Doctors and patients are already involved, but I think more is possible. For example, also investigate what happens in that consultation room, how people experience their illness or can maintain their vitality. What goes wrong and where is the need?

The Living Labs from Medical Delta are the perfect match for the way universities of applied sciences operate. We want to invest more in that. For example, this can be about the use of eHealth, but it can also be about low-tech solutions. For example, it appears that nurses spend an enormous amount of time searching for materials - from bandages to bladder scans. You can use technology for this. And recently a group of Applied Sciences students has been busy with ampoule packaging. There was a sharp edge on it that caused wounds when opened, and that led to a risk of infection. Our students developed a new ampoule opener.

You also engage in social innovation. What should we think about?

For me that’s everything that at the moment is outside the medical model scope. Medicine is very much focused on intervention. We are always looking for new ways to visualize or cure diseases. This is also reflected in Medical Delta. Technological developments should be aimed at making healthcare more sustainable and cheaper and allowing people to live healthier longer. But some things cannot be ‘fixed’ and you may wonder whether healthcare will really become cheaper with new technology.

Some things cannot be ‘fixed’ and you may wonder whether healthcare will really become cheaper with new technology

Take something like chronic pain. There is often little that can be done about it, no physiological cause can be found and doctors don't know what to do. All sorts of interventions can be conceived that could possibly have an effect: medication, physiotherapy, other medication, yet another photo ... Doctors tend to always offer their patients something new in such a situation and they think that the patient wants this too . This way they do not fail in their role and think they give hope to the patient. But actually we have to look for other solutions and start a different conversation with patients. The caregiver is then no 'fixer' but 'enabler', aimed at a better life with chronic pain.

You are one of the lecturers involved in Vitale Delta. What is that?

Vitale Delta is a collaboration between the universities of applied sciences of Rotterdam, Leiden, The Hague and Inholland and is also about social innovation. This collaboration has its roots in Medical Delta. Within the program, the universities of applied sciences deal with vitality and health in the neighborhood in four work packages. These work packages are about exercise, health technology, integrated neighborhood approach and vital citizens and professionals. With all these packages I see possibilities in the cooperation with Medical Delta. For example, when I look at healthcare professionals who all have to work longer, we face enormous challenges. That is something that we can investigate with Medical Delta from an academic perspective and from universities of applied sciences. I am very optimistic about the bridges that we can build.

You are a lecturer now, but once you started as a nurse. What was the motivation for the research group?

I have always found the primary process interesting. I had all kinds of questions about it and I wanted to improve the practice. When I decided to study medicine, I took my practical knowledge with me, but I noticed that it was not always appreciated. As a lecturer, I can bring practice to a knowledge institution and vice versa knowledge to practice.

What I like is that in recent years I have received more and more phone calls from nurses who want to investigate something. Recently from someone who said, "I'm just an vocational educated nurse." Well, just leave out the ‘just’. She had a very relevant question! Give room for that. Of course, support is needed to come to a responsible research question, but the fact that healthcare professionals convert their own curiosity into a research question, I think is a fantastic development.