Junior researcher

Department Department of General Practice & Elderly Care Medicine
Work location Groningen
Apply no later than 11 November 2021
Working environment

The University Medical Center Groningen, located in the center of Groningen, is one of the Netherlands’ 8 university medical centers and the largest employer in the Northern Netherlands. It has an ambitious, dynamic, international environment with state-of-the-art facilities. More than 13.000 employees provide patient care, are involved in medical education and perform cutting-edge scientific research, focused on healthy ageing.

Departments
The Department of General Practice & Elderly Care Medicine of the UMCG has various tasks for which more than 200 enthusiastic and committed employees work together. They provide student education and the three-year training to become a general practitioner. The department also conducts scientific research in general practice, elderly care medicine and midwifery, and provides patient care in the Academic General Practice Groningen.

Job description

The Department of General Practice & Elderly Care Medicine is looking for a junior researcher to work on a research project that focusses on digital interdisciplinary consultation. This subproject is part of a larger project performed in collaboration with Radboudumc and Maastricht University. The focus of this subproject will be on how the outcome measures of digital interdisciplinary consultations can be determined reliably by using available data such as claim data and routine care data. It will also assess which types of interdisciplinary consultation are suitable for certain types of clinical problems and questions.

Project background
The aging of the population and the growing availability of treatment options coincide with an increasing pressure on the Dutch health care system. In this system, general practitioners (GPs) play a pivotal role as the first physician to be consulted by patients for urgent and non-urgent medical questions. Although the vast majority of requests for help are dealt with by the GPs themselves, for some questions, consultation with a specialist is needed. In case of urgent referrals, telephone consultation rules, but for non-urgent questions, a number of options are available to Dutch GPs. Next to the classic telephone consultation of a nearby medical specialist, GPs can consult specialists through a number of systems for digital consultation. The main similarity between these methods of digital interdisciplinary consultation is that the GP remains the responsible physician who is in direct contact with the patient, and that these interdisciplinary consultations can be carried out synchronously, so at a time that suits both the GP and the specialist.

In the Netherlands, the implementation of digital interdisciplinary consultations is broadly supported by policy makers and health insurers, as it is believed that this will decrease referrals and associated costs. Proper evidence on the cost-effectiveness of these applications is, however, lacking (9). Also, it is unclear for which type of patient, diseases, or questions, interdisciplinary consultation takes place, how complex case histories are, how patients are involved in this type of consultation, and how GPs can implement these applications in their daily practice. Despite this, many efforts are taken to increase interdisciplinary consultations. Only recently, studies are conducted to see if referrals drop due to digital interdisciplinary consultation. In the meantime, more and more GPs are given the opportunity to use one or more systems, next to the always available option to consult via a telephone conversation.
Before these different systems are implemented nationwide, much more insight into the complexity of these consultations is required. There are no studies on the complexity of digital interdisciplinary consultations, nor studies comparing the different types of interdisciplinary consultation. The advantages and disadvantages of different systems in the case mix presented in general practice needs to be clarified.

The research project will start January 2022 and will last three years.

Research activities
The research activities in this subproject will be:

• Develop and validate a method to estimate the impact of digital consultations on healthcare costs using registry data.

• Perform a retrospective study on transcripts of digital interdisciplinary consultations of GPs who have access to multiple methods for digital consultations.

• Analyse secondary outcomes from an ongoing RCT on digital interdisciplinary consultations.

• Disseminating research outcomes, including writing reports and scientific publications.

Your role
You will be part of the UMCG team of general practitioners, health scientists and health economists, who collaborate in the research project.

What do we need

• You have a master’s degree in medicine, health sciences, public health, human movement sciences or other health-related sciences.

• You have affinity with organisation of primary care.

• You have knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods.

• You have proven expertise in written English, e.g. a master thesis or a publication.

What do we offer

A position for 21,6 hours a week (0.6 fte) for three years. Your salary will be a maximum of € 4.615,- gross per month (scale 10), depending on your qualifications and relevant experience, based on a full-time appointment. In addition, the UMCG will offer you 8% holiday pay, and 8.3% end-of-year bonus. The conditions of employment comply with the Collective Labour Agreement for Medical Centres (CAO-UMC).

More information

For more information about this vacancy you may contact:
Dr. Henk van der Worp, e-mail address [email protected]

Applying for a job

Please use the the digital application form at the bottom of this page - only these will be processed. You can apply until 11 November 2021.
Within half an hour after sending the digital application form you will receive an email- confirmation with further information.