Hanna Kuusisto (MD, PhD), a deputy-member of Tampere Brain & Mind steering group, has plenty of hats to wear! She is docent and chief physician in neurology, and specialist chief physician in patient safety at Tampere University Hospital. In addition, she is a Professor of customer- and patient safety at the Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), and finally, the Chair of the Current Care Guidelines for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) – work group.
Although Hanna’s days are full with both clinical and administrative work, she is also very active in research, leading two different research groups. One of these is the work package (WP) 3 of the Proshade-project, which is funded by the Strategic Research Council of Academy of Finland. WP3 focusses on patient-generated data and information literacy in shared decision-making.
Proshade project is coordinated by the Department of Health and Social Management at UEF, and numerous hospital districts and primary health care units from Oulu, Kuopio, Pirkanmaa and Uusimaa are involved in the project. In addition, this vast collaboration network also includes Fimea (Finnish Medicines Agency), PALKO (Choices in Health Care), THL (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare), HOTUS (Nursing Research Foundation), Health Village’s Brain Hub, Neurology-unit at Tampere University Hospital, Epilepsy-center at Kuopio University Hospital and also Neurocenter Finland.
Hanna’s second research group studies the course of MS, and effectiveness of its treatment in Finland. The group focusses on MS-disease in children and senior citizens, safety of the treatments, co-morbidities, and how the disease affects the patients well being at work, as well as their ability to work. Ilkka Rauma (MD) will defend his thesis later this year on the Safety of disease-modifying therapies for highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. The date of his defense is November 11th. His opponent is the director of Neurocenter Finland, Eero Rissanen (MD, PhD).
- Neurocenter Finland offers an excellent opportunity to find collaborators, as well as spread new treatment methods and operating models found through research. In fact, I am currently looking for focus groups of medical doctors for our Proshade project, so keep an eye on your emails! Furthermore, Neurocenter Finland provided me with assistance two years ago, when I needed help with the updates on the Act on the Secondary Use of Health and Social Data and the effects of these updates on my research. Thank you for the assistance!, Hanna says.
For more information, please visit:
Proshade-project
Tampere Brain & Mind is part of the national Neurocenter Finland, spread across six cities in Finland. You can read more about our national network here.