A special kind of care needs a particular type of health promotion. Dr. Doris Gebhard, Research Associate at the Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health, conveys this to the outpatient care workers at the roadshow on "Working healthily in care", which met on June 26, 2023, in Munich. The event is organized by the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care, the Verband der Ersatzkasse e.V. (vdek), and the Bavarian State Office for Care (LfP).
There are about five million people in need of care in Germany - many want to remain in their living environment for as long as possible. Still, qualified staff cannot make this possible with reasonable care and nursing quality. Health promotion is an excellent measure to recruit sufficient nursing staff for the outpatient care sector now and in the future and keep them in good health until retirement.
The project EMMA, short for "Evidence-based measure development of BGM/BGF as a model project for outpatient care services," of the Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health in cooperation with the vdek deals with health promotion and prevention for employees in outpatient care, who have so far been a neglected target group. "The nursing activities of outpatient care workers are similar to those in other long-term care sectors but are performed in a completely different setting. These specifics in the work organization and environment lead to poorer mental and physical health compared to other care sectors. It is important to actively and specifically counteract this with measures," explains Prof. Dr. Filip Mess, head of the Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health.
The project aims to develop means of health promotion and prevention specifically tailored to the needs of outpatient care services and their employees. "Internationally, we are far ahead in research with the EMMA project. Until now, there was hardly any evidence - we were able to achieve a relevant gain in knowledge with the systematic approach and were thus able to develop targeted packages of measures for the target group of outpatient care," explains project leader Dr. Gebhard.
In the first step, an analysis of the current situation was carried out, whereby, above all, the burdens, challenges, and resources of the daily work of outpatient care workers were to be identified. "Nursing staff are faced with a wide range of demands. Psychosocial and physical challenges characterize their daily work. The working environment of the patients' private homes is usually not adapted to the care activities to be carried out, time pressure is the permanent companion in all activities, and also the transfer between the patients' homes holds challenges, such as getting in and out of the car 30 times or navigating through big city traffic jams," says Gebhard.
Together with the outpatient care workers, thematic focal points were set and evaluated for the development of measures. Twenty-three packages of measures from six thematic areas were developed - tested in Bavarian care facilities, and continuously adapted. These serve health-promoting and preventive approaches such as an ergonomic working environment in cars, addressing aspects of work organization such as optimizing information flows or absenteeism management.
But also social components were addressed, such as the appreciation of the employees among each other: "For this purpose, we integrated short work assignments into the employees' daily routine and in the evening the positive and negative experiences were pinned up on a pin board. In the end, the employees had a suitable pool of ideas for better cooperation," explains the Research Associate.
In the last step, the measures are being tested for effectiveness in care facilities in Berlin and Brandenburg, among other things, about the ability to work, burnout, or resilience. These measures will eventually be implemented in "MEHRWERT: PFLEGE", an offer for occupational health management of the vdek. "With the interventions developed within the framework of EMMA, we can integrate measures that are precisely tailored to the everyday work of outpatient care workers into sustainable process consulting on occupational health management. In this way, we can incorporate the research results from 1:1 into counseling practice," says Stefanie Thees, project manager of "MEHRWERT:PFLEGE" at the vdek.
Further dates of the roadshow "Working healthily in care":
- Fürth Monday, July 17, 2023
- Würzburg Wednesday, July 19, 2023
To the homepage of the Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health
To the project page of EMMA
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Filip Mess
Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24520
e-mail: filip.mess(at)tum.de
Dr. Doris Gebhard
Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
phone: 089 289 24972
e-mail: doris.gebhard(at)tum.de
Text: Bastian Daneyko
Photos: private