In a second announcement, officials at GVSU, MSU, Spectrum Health and Grand Rapids Medical Education Partners said they also will join together for an initiative toward increasing patient safety.

“It’s really been a very exciting collaboration,” Dwyer said. “It’s a new area for this kind of certificate and something we really wanted to do in a joint fashion.”
Students who attend GVSU or any of the eight MSU community medical schools statewide — including the new Secchia Center in Grand Rapids — now are able to obtain a graduate certificate in clinical research trials management, Dwyer said.

Areas of research that require a having particular tissue for biopsy or working directly with patients to gather information during a clinical trial are examples of what the program could provide, he said.

“(The program) would include course content from GVSU and MSU, providing options for students with varying levels of backgrounds and experiences,” Dwyer said. “When you want to go into a setting to do that type of clinical and transitional research, you need well-trained people to work in that environment.”

Students can obtain the certificate as part of a masters program or acquire it separately.

A dollar amount cannot yet be tied to the program as there was — and will be — a significant investment of time and implementation to make it successful, Dwyer said. The program is expected to begin within the next few semesters.

The second initiative aims to cut accidents at hospitals by strengthening effective communication between doctors, nurses and other health care providers, said Jean Nagelkerk, vice provost for health at GVSU.

“More than 50 percent of errors within hospitals are due to miscommunication between professional staffs,” Nagelkerk said. “We hope to reduce that number with these programs.”

A course in patient safety will provide students with two hours of team-building exercises, several video clips displaying how to correct patient care errors and then live, hands-on simulations at the new Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital opening January 2011 in Grand Rapids, Nagelkerk said. The course will begin to be offered this spring semester, said Margaret Thompson, M.D., community associate dean for the College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids.

Continued talks with MSU’s partners in West Michigan will provide for the betterment of not only the education of students, but also patients within the health care system, Thompson said.

“In the end, we want to improve education and medical efficiency and safety by having the different disciplines in health care to learn how to work better together from the get-go,” Thompson said. “We’re continuing to work with GVSU (as we) meet at least monthly to talk about different ways to get our students to work better in the health care system.”