RWTH Aachen University
General Information
The Section Knowledge and Safety Management and the affiliated AIXTRA Competence Centre for Training and Patient Safety are specialized on the management of human factors in the healthcare setting and curriculum development for healthcare practitioners. The Section Knowledge and Safety Management brings in methodical expertise and experience in acquiring large-scale data from professionals in the healthcare system. The AIXTRA is focused on on teaching and training of professional skills including communication and health literacy, which is an essential component in prevention.
The research group led by Florian Kahles is part of the Department of Cardiology, Angiology, and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen. The group’s primary focus is cardioimmunology, investigating the interplay between the immune system and cardiovascular diseases. Their work encompasses a wide range of ressearch including clinical and translational to basic science studies with the goal of advancing our understanding of cardiometabolic diseases and identifying novel therapeutic targets as well as prevention strategies for cardiovascular conditions.
Following team members shape the blue zone project at the region Aachen:
Martin Klasen
Andrea Lenes
Dominik Dickmann
Sarah Stieghorst
Saša Sopka
Florian Hans Karl Kahles
Alessandra Antwerpen
Martin Reugels
Role in the interreg blue zone project
Workpackage 1 & 2
The research group led by Florian Kahles is focusing on the intervention study, which is part of the Work packages 1&2. This includes the recruitment of participants living in the Städteregion Aachen, the collection of questionnaires and clinical data, blood analyses, and the delivery of the intervention. The intervention consists of tracking participants’ daily step counts and implementing strategies to increase their average number of steps. The goal is to study how this affects physical activity, cardiometabolic health, and mental health. Through this study, the team and its partners aim to identify novel prevention strategies and to gain a deeper mechanistic understanding of the cardiometabolic risk profile in the EMR region.
Workpackage 3 & 4
The Section Knowledge and Safety Management and the affiliated AIXTRA Competence Centre for Training and Patient Safety are key players in the analysis of healthcare curricula, in the development of educational materials, and in their implementation in the IMR. Moreover, the team develops online surveys for healthcare professionals and aims to find out what people in healthcare professions are doing to promote the health of the population and prevent disease
More information about us as a IMR-blue zone partner: