Researching Patient Safety and Quality in Healthcare: A Nordic Perspective

Professor Karina Aase, University of Stavanger, is an internationally recognized quality and safety expert with a multi-sector background. She is founder of the Quality and Safety in Healthcare Systems research group at the Department of Health. Under Aase's leadership this has become Norway's largest and most influential multidisciplinary research group within the field of healthcare quality and patient safety, boasting more than 20 affiliated researchers, as well as numerous national and international collaborators. Professor Aase has a proven record of gaining and leading large funding grants. Aase has a publication record in merited journals, has edited several books on patient safety and quality in healthcare, and is Associate Editor of BMC Health Services Research. She is member of the National Council for the Patient Safety Programme, and has currently been appointed by the King in Council as member of a government committee proposed to suggest a new organization of state ownership of the specialist healthcare services. Lene Schibevaag has a bachelor in Physiotherapy from the University of Northumbria and has worked for several years as a physiotherapist in both a hospital and a municipality setting in England and Norway. She has a master degree in Societal Safety from the University of Stavanger with a dissertation on transitional care entitled Multidisciplinary Collaboration: A study of the physiotherapist role in transitional care of the elderly. Schibevaag is currently working as a research coordinator for the Quality and Safety in Healthcare research group at the University of Stavanger, Norway.