The DIGITAL & INNOVATION SKILLS HELIX IN HEALTH, the DISH project is an Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliance project with seven partner countries (Norway, Germany, Spain, England, Poland, Belgium, and Denmark).
The University Hospital Sonderjylland is the project lead partner and the South Denmark EU office is the coordinator.
A triple helix partnership is established in each country, covering a health care provider, an educational institution, and a cluster of tech companies.
This construction of partnerships leaves the DISH project with a multi collaborative approach to developing digital and innovation skills in health care.
The DISH project started in November 2018. Since spring 2020, the Covid19 pandemic has been a challenge and has left the project with some testing problems.
DISH has an innovative approach and builds on developing three concepts necessary to achieve innovative and digital skills. Each concept addresses capacity found in the triple helix partnership in each country.
The “Learning Innovation Unit”, also called LIU, is a concept that gathers a group of people involved in the digital skills training. The group covers all stakeholders in the following skills training. Here the cluster of tech companies (IT departments) plays an essential role.
The “On the Job Training” concept establishes skills training in simulation facilities or clinical practice. Here the healthcare providers play a pivotal role.
Educational institutions have a central role in developing an assessment concept to assess the competencies achieved.
All three concepts are thus essential in the effort to achieve DIGITAL & INNOVATION SKILLS IN HEALTHCARE.
After developing the concepts, each country will test the concepts on 5 test sites and 100 staff members.
The characteristics of the LIU vary in each of the countries. Some countries use the same LIU each time, and others “build” a new LIU each time a training session is to be set up. All countries are aware that both management, staff, and IT/tech companies should participate in the LIU meetings.
The “On the Job Training” are more homogeneous in the different countries, although some training sessions are being held in simulation facilities and others on site. The elements in training, though, are similar.
The assessment concept is offset in the educational institutions in each country. Those concepts are in line with ECVET (the European credit system for vocational education and training). EQAVET recommendations are applied and followed, which means that the assessment of competencies fits European standards even though they can vary in between the concrete technology and setting.
All three concepts are tested (in draft format) in the respective countries and finalized during the autumn 2021.
