Decision-making in extreme prematurity awarded by ZonMW

16 May 2018

Recently, Rosa Geurtzen was awarded by ZonMw as appreciation for her role in a project that contributes to making effective choices in healthcare. She received the scholarship for the PreCo study, in which prenatal counseling in extreme preterm birth is optimized.

The prize of 2500 euros can be spent on an (international) course or conference visit in the field of efficiency. Rosa is PhD student on the PreCo study and resident in pediatrics. Shared decision-making for impending preterm delivery at the threshold of viability Prenatal counselling is the dialogue between parent(s) and physicians that takes place before the birth of a child in the case of impending preterm delivery at the threshold of viability. According to the Dutch guideline, parents need to be involved in decision-making at a gestational age of 24 weeks. The impact of extreme preterm birth is enormous, because a significant proportion of children will not survive and the children who survive may have serious health problems. Parents must be able to participate in the decision-making process to decide for active care (intensive care) or palliative comfort care at this early gestation. The nationwide PreCo project (Prenatal Counseling in extreme prematurity) of the Radboudumc Amalia childrens hospital has developed a framework with recommendations for the organization, decision-making, content and style of prenatal counseling. This framework was developed with involved parents, neonatologists and obstetricians. One of the important recommendations of the framework is shared decision-making (SDM) and the framework also provides practical advices on how to perform SDM. At present, a decision-aid is being developed to further support informed decision-making. More information can be found here .
Rosa is member of the theme Healthcare improvement science and supervised by Jos Draaisma, Arno van Heijst, Rosella Hermens, Marije Hogeveen.