RSU Summer School Teaches Innovative Approaches to Healthcare Process Management

From 15 to 19 August, Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) will host a summer school on "Modelling and Simulation in Health Care", organised in cooperation with two German universities – the APOLLON University for Health Care Management in Bremen, and the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics at Bergische Universität Wuppertal. The summer school will be held on RSU premises this year and will be attended by students from Latvia and abroad.

RSU has invited several distinguished and experienced lecturers to present at the five-day event: Olav Götz, Professor at APOLLON University of Applied Sciences and Visiting Professor at RSU, whose research focuses on the financial management of healthcare institutions, cost analysis, and institutional process modelling, will present the MedModel software; Sebastian Rachuba, Associate Professor at the University of Wuppertal and researcher at the University of Exeter (UK), will talk about healthcare process modelling using R software. Both modelling methods will be used to analyse and model the efficiency of health facility management processes.

Initially, lectures will provide students with a theoretical introduction to both methods, which will be followed by group work and problem-solving exercises.

According to Associate Professor Daiga Behmane, Vice Dean of the RSU Faculty of Public Health and Social Welfare who is the organiser of the summer school, it is important for students to participate on site as the training will be very intensive, practice-oriented, and closely linked to learning the basics of programming.

Participants will work in groups to solve a case study in healthcare management and present their results at the end of the week.

Both guest lecturers will be on site in the classroom to help each student understand the uncertainties involved in building a model and processing data.

Based on past experience with organising summer schools, we know that students appreciate the knowledge they gain and the opportunities they have to use it in their studies and work in the future. The group activities encourage active communication and exchanging views.

Asst. Prof. Daiga Behmane

RSU has been organising summer schools as part of the Health Management master's programme since 2019. The event has always attracted great interest among participants, both for the interesting and relevant topics covered, and for the opportunity to learn more about modelling approaches to health management processes.