Erna Haraldsdottir

Professor, BSc, MSc, PhD Nursing

Affiliation(s)
Professor in Nursing at the Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK. Deputy Head of Queen Margaret University’s Nursing and Paramedic Science Division and Director of the University’s Centre for Person-centred Research.

Title
“Making the jump” from a possibility in principle to possibility in practice: Transforming and developing person-centred practice within health and social care organisations

Abstract
It is the possibility of possibility, Søren Kierkegaard tells us, that leads to the somewhat paradoxical condition of feeling dizzy with anxiety yet having the pulsating desire to jump into the unknown. For transformation to happen, the gap between possibility in principle and possibility in practice needs to be bridged. The possibility gap in relation to transforming and developing person-centred practices is that most health and social care system strategies and policies have person-centred principles at their heart. However, translating them into practice remains a challenge.

In my presentation I will, through the lens of Kirkegaard, focus on how teaching and learning needs to intentionally include the gap and ‘the jump’ that needs to happen to transform and develop practices and care into being truly person-centred.

I will highlight several of my research projects focusing on the development of person-centred practice through education and learning programs and demonstrate the philosophical underpinnings of these, practical application and outcomes. I will bring to light the real learning from these projects in terms of methodology and provide examples of methods used.

The core challenge we are facing as leaders, practitioners and academics, with invested interest in person-centred health and social care practice, is to truly implement person-centredness into practice. In order to do that, we need to make the jump.

Ref: Kierkegaard S (1989) London, Penguin Group.

Bio
Erna has worked in palliative care since the late 1980s. She was instrumental in developing and setting up a palliative care service within the National Health Care system in Iceland between 1990 and 2000. Erna is professor in nursing, deputy head of nursing and director of the Centre for Person-centred Practice Research at Queen Margaret University. Erna has extensive experience and knowledge in person-centred palliative care. She has been involved in person-centred practice development, education and research in various health and social care settings including hospices, care homes and within the national health care system in UK. She serves on several development groups in relation to person-centred practice and palliative care education and research and has published widely in palliative care research journals. She has also taken part in developing and delivering national and international teaching and learning programmes in palliative care including Iceland, the UK, Serbia, Uganda and India.