Donor Health Care

The DoHeCa project

The Donor Health Care (DoHeCa) project had the aim to develop and offer a curriculum to increase knowledge and skills of professionals involved in care for donors of Substances of Human Origin (SoHO).  This was the first initiative to combine education related to both blood, cells, tissues and organs. Education for this dedicated group of professionals was not developed nor available, training was usually offered on the job’. Donor professionals play an important role in the process of donation, and they benefit from tailor-made education: more knowledge of donor health leads to better quality of donor care, which ultimately also has a positive effect on the recipient of the product.

For the development and preparation of education material (100% distance learning), a DoHeCa consortium was formed, consisting of professionals with different backgrounds in donor health care, donation, or the processing of donated material. A total of 14 European partners were involved, covering the expertise in the several areas of SoHO. Most partners had experience in education. An expert in didactics was involved  to give further advise. The DoHeCa programme was supported by 28 associate partners from 15 countries.  

The Educational Framework, which consists of the learning outcomes, learning objectives and the number of European Credits (ECs), has been formulated for each module. All work packages developed educational material and assignments based on the Educational Framework.

The DoHeCa programme encompasses 5 knowledge modules:

1. Basic principles of donor health care
2. Donor eligibility
3. Donation and Complications
4. Application and specification of SoHO
5. Quality management of donor health care

An overarching module ‘Personal Development’ supports the training of skills in the area of critical appraisal, leadership team building, scientific research and communication.

For each of the modules a module book is available. From September 2016 until December 2017 international students enrolled in a pilot to test the programme.

For more information, please reach out to Anne-marie van Walraven, a.vanwalraven@sanquin.nl