We are a group of acute and emergency physicians from the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Singapore and the UK, the safer@home research consortium. Since 2014 we have been regularly working together on projects with the main goal to improve patient outcomes and experiences.
Meet the Team
Hanneke Merten
Hanneke is a cognitive psychologist and a researcher in quality and safety in healthcare at the Department of Public and Occupational Health. She is based at the VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam.
She has a special interest in quality improvement, healthcare quality and patient safety. She is currently completing her PhD-study on patient safety and complex care.
Dr Louise van Galen
Dr Rishi S Nannan Panday
Rishi is a medical doctor and researcher. For his PhD in the field of acute internal medicine, he compared the effects of early prehospital antibiotic treatment for sepsis patients with usual care. Rishi is currently finishing his training as a clinical pharmacologist and works as of January 2020 as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, where his research is aimed at digital health.
Dr Chris Subbe
Chris is a physician who specialises in Acute, Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine. He works in North Wales and lives on the Isle of Anglesey. Chris lectures at the School of Medical Sciences in Bangor. He is also an Improvement Science Fellow with The Health Foundation. His claim to fame is the first peer reviewed paper on early warning scores
Dr Eva van den Ende
Eva is a medical doctor and currently works as a PhD student at the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands. She was one of the main coordinators of the INSOMNIA flash mob study; a nationwide, single-day, multi centre study, assessing sleep quantity and quality in patients during hospitalisation.
Dr Immo Weichert
Immo is a physician who specialises in Acute medicine . He works in Ipswich at the east coast of the UK. He has an interest in the interdependence of physical and mental health, frailty and clinical pharmacology. He is vice chair of the Acute Medicine Group in the Eastern Region, an association of acute physicians in the UK's largest postgraduate deanery.
Dr Mikkel Brabrand
Mikkel is a consultant at the emergency department at Odense University Hospital and is an associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark. He has a background in internal medicine and cardiology. He is research director for acute and emergency medicine at the regional teaching hospital, Hospital of South West Jutland, in Denmark. His primary research interests are risk stratification, epidemiology and organisational aspects of acute and emergency medicine.
Dr Christian Nickel
Christian is deputy head of the Emergency Department at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. In addition to his clinical and teaching work he has a special interest in geriatric emergency care. He is chair of the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Section of the European Society of Emergency Medicine. His main research focus is disease presentation and risk stratification of older patients in the ED.
Bo Schouten
Bo is a neuropsychologist and researcher at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. She works as a PhD candidate at the department of Public and Occupational Health. Her research is focused on quality and safety for older patients in acute healthcare, with special interest in the preferences and needs of patients.
Dr Prabath Nanayakkara
Prabath is an associate professor and the head of the section acute medicine of the department of Internal Medicine in the VU University medical center Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also the director of the acute medicine fellowship programme and is currently the president of the section acute medicine of the Netherlands Society of Internal Medicine. He is the principle investigator of many studies such as the PHANTASI trial which was recently published in Lancet Respir Med.
Dr Tim Cooksley
Tim is a consultant in Acute Medicine at Manchester University Foundation Trust, honorary consultant at The Christie and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Manchester. Tim is editor-in-chief of the journal "Acute Medicine" and current treasurer for the Society for Acute Medicine. He has an interest in Emergency Oncology and patient safety research.
Professor Dr Harm R Haak
Harm is professor of acute internal medicine in Maastricht University Medical Centre + and Máxima Medical Centre Eindhoven / Veldhoven, the Netherlands. His research focus is on safety and quality of care for older patients in acute medicine.
The other members of the team are:
Marjolein Kremers: Maastricht University medical center/Máxima medical center, department of internal medicine
Jelmer Alsma: Erasmus Mecical Center, department of internal medicine