The children’s hospital of the future: from the perspective of nurses

What does the children’s hospital of the future look like? And what does this mean for the work of nurses? What are the reasons they drop out or quit altogether? And what do they need to continue doing their jobs well and with pleasure?

These are important questions to answer. Because a growing shortage of both staff and resources means that workloads keep increasing. But there is more at play. The working environment, fringe benefits, opportunities for further development, use of technology and job satisfaction are important factors for both the current workload, and for possible future solutions.

To find an answer, Convergence programme Healthy Start organised a brainstorming session on May 30. Over 20 nurses from different departments at Sophia Children’s Hospital discussed the bottlenecks they experience in the workplace and their wishes to make work more attractive.

During this meeting, which was organised by Mariska de Heer, Anne Heijboer and Susanna De Vette-van Bekkum, on behalf of the VAR Sophia, and Vincent Jaddoe, academic lead of Healthy Start, the main bottlenecks were identified and pathways for solutions were explored.

Children hospital of the futureHealthy Start ambition project Pediatric Hospital of the Future focuses on innovations to ensure better and affordable care for children and parents in the future. In this project, nurses collaborate with researchers from Erasmus MC, Erasmus University Rotterdam and TU Delft.