Throughout the week of October 7 – 11 (2024), the San Juan Campus of the UMH was home to the in-person training portion for the blended intensive program, PROTECT, aka ‘Patient Risk Oversight: Teaching, Education, and Clinical Training,’ which attracted some thirty students of medicine, health, health economics, and occupational therapy who hailed from Finland, Germany, Portugal, and Spain.

“The itinerary was definitely intense because it included cultural activities in addition to those from the very program, which were to introduce risk management, culture of safety, generator of safety in health fields,” explained program coordinator, José Joaquín Mira.

During the week, the program students expressed and exchanged their knowledge about different health models and curricular experiences in program sessions that drew students interested in health, but who were from paramedical, medical, nursing, and other disciplines.

This training complemented previous online training that they underwent during June and July. “The idea for the online portion was to introduce principles of patient safety to them so that they were up to speed by the time they began managing risks,” added the coordinator.

In addition to the UMH, the program includes partner institutions that are also participating. These are NOVA University Lisbon (Portugal), RheinMain University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and LAB University of Applied Sciences (Finland). The upcoming three program editions are going to take place, respectively, in Wiesbaden, Germany; Lisbon, Portugal; and Helsinki, Finland.