University of Basel, Switzerland

Prof. Sabina de Geest 

Sabina De Geest is a Professor of Nursing, Director of the Institute of Nursing Science and Chair of the Department of Public Health of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Basel (Switzerland). She leads the Leuven Basel Research Group, an international, interdisciplinary research group focusing on behavioural and psychosocial issues in solid organ & stem cell transplantation. Driven by implementation science methodology, her research portfolio focuses on the development of innovative care models partially also powered by eHealth. In addition, her research addresses psychosocial and behavioural pathways and their relation to outcomes in chronic illness and the development and testing of instruments to assess patient reported outcomes.

Dr. Suzanne Dhaini

Suzanne Dhaini is a nurse and health services researcher with emphasis on quality of care. She completed her doctoral studies in nursing science in 2016 at the University of Basel, Switzerland. She earned her Master’s degree at Concordia University in Canada, in 2007. Between 2017 & 2020, she assumed the position of a tenure track assistant professor at the School of Nursing, at the Amercian University of Beirut.
In Basel, she is a scientific collaborator and the academic project lead of INSPIRE (ImplemeNtation of a community-baSed care Programme for senIoR citizEns in Basel-Landschaft).

Dr. Mieke Deschodt

Mieke Deschodt holds a Master degree in Nursing Science from KU Leuven University, Belgium since 2007. She worked six years as a geriatric expert nurse in the University Hospitals of Leuven. In 2013, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation on ‘Multidisciplinary inpatient geriatric consultation teams: organizational aspects and outcomes’ at the University of Leuven. As postdoctoral research fellow, she is affiliated to Nursing Science, Department of Public Health at the University of Basel and 20% to Gerontology and Geriatrics, Department of Chronic Diseases, Metabolism and Ageing at the University of Leuven.

In Basel, she is leading the INSPIRE project (ImplemeNtation of a community-baSed care Programme for senIoR citizEns in Basel-Landschaft) and is part of the TRANS-SENIOR (Transitional Care Innovation in Senior Citizens) research group.

In Leuven she is principal investigator of the G-COACH (Geriatric CO-mAnagement for Cardiology patients in the Hospital), FIREFLy (Follow-up of ILT recommendations in Flanders) and the G-ERAS (Geriatric assessment in Early Recovery After Surgery programs) projects. She is co-investigator of the GAPP (Geriatric Activation Program Pellenberg) and URGENT (Unplanned Readmission prevention through a GEriatric Network for Transitional care) studies. Mieke Deschodt is fellow of the European Academy of Nursing Science and the American Geriatrics Society, and board member of Wit-Gele Kruis Vlaanderen, the largest home care organization in Flanders.

Prof. Michael Simon

Michael Simon is a nurse and health services researcher focusing on quality of care. He is interested in which structures and processes of nursing care contribute to patient outcomes using large routine data and applying advanced statistical methods. He leads the Patient Safety and Quality of Care research group with eight doctoral students and four post-doctoral fellows at the Institute of Nursing Science at the University of Basel and the INSELSPITAL University Hospital in Bern. His research spans all healthcare settings and is diversely funded including the Swiss National Science Foundation, EU Horizon 2020, Stiftung Pflegewissenschaft, SAMW and others. He is fellow at the European Academy of Nursing Science and the Royal Statistical Society and an associate editor of the International Journal of Nursing Science and PeerJ.

Dr. Sandra Staudacher

Dr. des. Sandra Staudacher, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and lawyer with international expertise in social and cultural aspects of aging, health and caregiving. Since 2018 she holds a postdoctoral position at the Institute of Nursing Science (INS), Department of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel (UNIBAS). She is Project Leader of TRIANGLE, a research project consisting of three case studies in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands analyzing person-centered care, quality of life and interprofessionality in retirement and nursing homes qualitatively. TRIANGLE includes ESR 8 of TRANS-SENIOR. With the aim of combining research and teaching, Sandra Staudacher develops and teaches courses on (applied) qualitative research methods.

Before joining the INS Sandra Staudacher was a lecturer and academic assistant at the Institute of Social Anthropology and member of the Graduate School of Gender Studies at the University of Basel. She wrote her dissertation “Cosmopolitan Aging in Urban Zanzibar: Elderhood, Health and Transnational Care Spaces Related to Oman” in the frame of a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) funded project. From 2015 to 2016 she was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. At the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) she collaborated as scientific assistant (2016) and as consultant (2017). From 2013 to 2014 Sandra Staudacher was a visiting lecturer at the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA). She completed her BA and MA studies in Social Anthropology and Law at the University of Basel and the University of Lausanne (UNIL). Besides her academic activities, she worked as a legal consultant and program manager counselling asylum seekers with the Red Cross Switzerland and HEKS (2009-2012).

Dr. Franziska Zúñiga

Dr. Franziska Zúñiga is university lecturer and head of education at the Institute of Nursing Science (INS), University of Basel. She did her PhD at the same Institute in 2015 and holds Master’s degrees in both nursing and theology. Her research focuses on health services research and implementation science in long-term care of older persons (both stationary and home care), with special interest in patient safety and quality of care, and the implementation of new models of care to improve the care of older persons. She is responsible for two academic- service - partnerships with the nursing homes of Basel-Stadt and Baselland (CURAVIVA BS / BL) and a nursing home near Zürich (KZU Kompetenzzentrum Pflege und Gesundheit), maintaining the link to the practice field of care.