Clinical decision-making skills or clinical reasoning is the complex set of skills and abilities needed in clinical practice to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan for and with patients. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the number of errors and undesirable effects in health care in the European Union is around ten percent. Wrong decisions in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases contribute significantly to this error rate. The consequences can be serious: they endanger the safety of patients and lead to higher costs in the healthcare system. "Although clinical decision-making skills are so important for a well-functioning health system, we still know far too little about how these skills can be properly taught and tested in training for health professionals. This also applies to medical studies in Germany and Europe,” explains Associea professor Dr. Inga Hege from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Augsburg. Together with scientists from Switzerland, Sweden, Malta, Slovenia and Poland she has therefore started a research project which is intended to address this deficiency.
"We want to develop curricula for the students as well as to train the teachers," continues Hege. The topic is as difficult to learn as it is to teach, as it involves many unconscious skills. That is why the project managers have undertaken to develop a curriculum for the students as well as a train-the-trainer course that supports teachers in teaching clinical decision-making . They want to use modern and innovative teaching and testing concepts with a combination of online and face-to-face classes, known as blended learning. "The funding of the research project by the EU shows how important clinical decision-making is for all health professions," emphasises the founding dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Dr. Martina Kadmon. "I am already looking forward to the results of the project , which will also be important and helpful for us in Augsburg in the further development of our medical degree program."
"We also pay attention also to the fact that our curriculum can easily be integrated into a wide range of existing study programmes,” says Hege. After all, it is a major concern of the research association to feed the results internationally into the different training and study courses in the health professions. The project partners from all over Europe are carrying out a targeted needs analysis in order to better understand the current situation at European universities. Building on this, learning objectives are formulated and suitable learning and examination methods are selected. Both the curriculum and the offers for teachers are implemented and evaluated at all partner universities with the support of industry partners. There are nearly 1 million euros for the project from Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliances 2019, which, among other things, promotes the development of innovative and multidisciplinary teaching and learning concepts in cooperation between higher education institutions and businesses.
