Efforts, rewards and professional autonomy determine residents' experienced well-being.

The well-being of residents, our future medical specialists, is not only beneficial to the individual physician but also conditional for delivering high-quality patient care. Therefore, the authors further explored how residents experience their own well-being in relation to their professional and personal life. The authors conducted a qualitative study based on a phenomenological approach.

[Supervisors being assessed].

Objective: Since 2015, a permanent quality cycle is mandatory for medical residency specialist training. One aspect of this cycle is the System for Evaluation of Teaching Qualities (SETQ), which allows trainees to give feedback about their supervisor. We analysed how these quality evaluations are discussed within groups of supervisors.

Evaluating Mind Fitness Training and Its Potential Effects on Surgical Residents’ Well-Being: A Mixed Methods Pilot Study.

Background: Residents’ well-being is essential for both the individual physician and the quality of patient care they deliver. Therefore, it is important to maintain or possibly enhance residents’ well-being. We investigated (i) the influence of mind fitness training (MFT) on quality of care-related well-being characteristics: work engagement, empathy, work satisfaction and stress perception and explored (ii) residents’ perceptions of MFT.

A qualitative interview study on the positive well-being of medical school faculty in their teaching role: job demands, job resources and role interaction.

Background: Attention for the well-being of medical school faculty is not only important for the prevention of attrition and burnout, but may also boost performance in their tasks in medical education. Positive well-being can be conceptualized as work engagement and this is associated with increased performance. In this study we explore how demands and resources from different tasks affect work engagement specifically for education.

Immunization after renal transplantation: current clinical practice.

Background: The use of potent immunosuppressive drugs and increased travel by renal transplant recipients (RTR) has augmented the risk for infectious complications. Immunizations and changes in lifestyle are protective. The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Transplant Work Group has developed guidelines on vaccination following solid organ transplantation.

[Use of quality assessments by internists: added pressure to carry out assessments or an aid to improve quality?].

Objective: To obtain an insight into how internists and residents use quality assessments and their opinions on these assessments.

Design: Questionnaire survey.

Method: All 139 internists and residents who attended a national training day on internal medicine in 2012 were invited to answer questions anonymously on the actual use of various quality assessments and to give their opinion on these assessments.

Residents' engagement and empathy associated with their perception of faculty's teaching performance.

Background: Faculty members rely on residents' feedback about their teaching performance. The influence of residents' characteristics on evaluations of faculty is relatively unexplored. We aimed to evaluate the levels of work engagement and empathy among residents and the association of both characteristics with their evaluation of the faculty's teaching performance.

[Concerns about residents' mental fitness: two possible strategies for a solution].

A good level of physical and mental fitness is essential in order to function optimally as a resident. Concerns about residents' mental fitness have recently been raised, based on high percentages of residents suffering from burnout and depression and data on the experience of stress and anxiety. Lack of mental fitness has negative consequences for the individual doctor as well as for the quality of patient care delivered.

[Monitoring and improving the quality of residency training: the hospital's central teaching committee as director?].

Objective: The Central Teaching Committees (CTCs) of Dutch medical teaching institutions have, since January 1st 2011, the role of "director of medical residency training programmes" and as such are legally required to maintain and promote a positive and safe training environment. This study explores how CTCs are fulfilling their new role.

Design: Questionnaire study.

[Using the SETQ system to evaluate and improve teaching qualities of clinical teachers].

Objective: To determine (a) the feasibility of implementing a system for the evaluation of teaching qualities (SETQ) of faculty in an academic medical centre, (b) the psychometric qualities of the questionnaires that are used for the generation of feedback and (c) how residents evaluate the teaching qualities of faculty members and how faculty rated themselves.

Design: Questionnaire study.

Methods: Residents evaluated the teaching qualities of faculty members and faculty also evaluated themselves.

Three methods of multi-source feedback compared: a plea for narrative comments and coworkers' perspectives.

Background: Doctor performance assessments based on multi-source feedback (MSF) are increasingly central in professional self-regulation. Research has shown that simple MSF is often unproductive. It has been suggested that MSF should be delivered by a facilitator and combined with a portfolio.

Management of post-splenectomy patients in the Netherlands.

After splenectomy, patients are at increased risk of sepsis with considerable mortality. The risk of sepsis can be reduced by immunising these patients and by prescribing antibiotic prophylaxis. The purpose of our study was to determine compliance with the international standards for the management of splenectomised patients in the Netherlands by investigating: (i) vaccination rates, (ii) the prescription of antibiotics and (iii) information in discharge letters.

Volume and diagnosis: an approach to cross-border care in eight European countries.

Objectives: Mobility of patients is a pertinent issue on the European Union's agenda. This study aimed to estimate the volume and main diagnoses of cross-border care in eight European countries, in order to provide policy makers with background information about the nature of patient mobility in Europe.

Methods: This article reports the combined findings from three independent studies that compiled self-reported information on admissions data and main diagnoses from more than 200 hospitals in eight European countries.

Impact of quality strategies on hospital outputs.

Context: This study was part of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) research project on patients crossing borders, a study to investigate quality improvement strategies in healthcare systems across the European Union (EU).

Aim: To explore the association between the implementation of quality improvement strategies in hospitals and hospitals' success in meeting defined quality requirements that are considered intermediate outputs of the care process.

Methods: Data regarding the implementation of seven quality improvement strategies (accreditation, organisational quality management programmes, audit and internal assessment of clinical standards, patient safety systems, clinical practice guidelines, performance indicators and systems for obtaining patients' views) and four dimensions of outputs (clinical, safety, patient-centredness and cross-border patient-centredness) were collected from 389 acute care hospitals in eight EU countries using a web-based questionnaire.

Is patient-centredness in European hospitals related to existing quality improvement strategies? Analysis of a cross-sectional survey (MARQuIS study).

Background: There is growing recognition of patients' contributions to setting objectives for their own care, improving health outcomes and evaluating care.

Objective: To quantify the extent to which European hospitals have implemented strategies to promote a patient-centred approach, and to assess whether these strategies are associated with hospital characteristics and the development of the hospital's quality improvement system.

Design: Cross-sectional survey of 351 European hospital managers and professionals.

Differentiating between hospitals according to the "maturity" of quality improvement systems: a new classification scheme in a sample of European hospitals.

Aim: This study, part of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) research project focusing on cross-border patients in Europe, investigated quality policies and improvement in healthcare systems across the European Union (EU). The aim was to develop a classification scheme for the level of quality improvement (maturity) in EU hospitals, in order to evaluate hospitals according to the maturity of their quality improvement activities.

Methods: A web-based questionnaire survey designed to measure quality improvement in EU hospitals was used as the basis for the classification scheme.

Application of quality improvement strategies in 389 European hospitals: results of the MARQuIS project.

Context: This study was part of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) research project investigating the impact of quality improvement strategies on hospital care in various countries of the European Union (EU), in relation to specific needs of cross-border patients.

Aim: This paper describes how EU hospitals have applied seven quality improvement strategies previously defined by the MARQuIS study: organisational quality management programmes; systems for obtaining patients' views; patient safety systems; audit and internal assessment of clinical standards; clinical and practice guidelines; performance indicators; and external assessment.

Methods: A web-based questionnaire was used to survey acute care hospitals in eight EU countries.

[An instrument for the assessment of the training qualities of clinician-educators].

Objective: The development and testing of a questionnaire to enable anesthesiology residents to assess the training qualities oftheir clinician-educators.

Design: Questionnaire.

Methods: The taskforce drafted a questionnaire based on the 26 item Stanford Faculty Development Program questionnaire (SFDP26) and adapted to the Dutch situation.

Measuring the perceived impact of facilitation on implementing recommendations from external assessment: lessons from the Dutch visitatie programme for medical specialists.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of facilitation by management consultants on implementing recommendations from external quality assessment (visitatie).

Design: Data collection through a postal survey amongst 205 medical specialists, representing 50 hospital-based specialist groups in the Netherlands.

Setting: Under the auspices of the specialty societies of surgeons, paediatricians and gynaecologists, 25 groups were offered approximately 20 h of management consulting to support the implementation of recommendations for quality improvement and were compared to 25 specialist groups not receiving the support.

Supporting Dutch medical specialists with the implementation of visitatie recommendations: a descriptive evaluation of a 2-year project.

Objective: To improve the quality of patient care by supporting the implementation of practice-specific visitatie (external peer review) recommendations.

Design: A descriptive evaluation of an intervention strategy (Quality Consultation). Data collection through participatory observation, telephone interviews, and a postal survey.

A policy analysis of the introduction and dissemination of external peer review (visitatie) as a means of professional self-regulation amongst medical specialists in The Netherlands in the period 1985-2000.

By examining the introduction and dissemination of external peer review through site-visits (visitatie) amongst Dutch medical specialists, this paper sets out to deepen our insight into the dynamics of professional self-regulation and health care policy making. We explore how visitatie has been used in the political process between medical specialists and the state, serving as a strategy in protecting the autonomy of physicians. In the late eighties and early nineties, factors both internal as well as external to the medical profession all together determined the start and spread of visitatie.