Biography

Marieke J. Schuurmans, PhD, RN is  a nurse and researcher, appointed professor and chair in Nursing Science at the University Medical Center Utrecht and professor of Care for Chronically Ill at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands.  She worked over ten years as a clinical nurse specialist in geriatric medicine and is an expert on complex nursing care of older people. In her  PhDstudy she developed the Delirium Observation Screening (DOS) Scale which is nowadays part of regular nursing care in Dutch hospitals and which is translated in numerous languages and used in hospitals across the globe. Her current research focuses on prevention of care related complications in hospitalised older multimorbid patients and daily functioning of older people with multimorbidity in primary care. Her research is practice oriented and  in close collaboration with patients and professionals. She is interested in the changing paradigm regarding health and new roles of patients and professionals in this perspective.   She is one of the founders of The Health Care Innovation Center (THINC.).

Marieke Schuurmans is responsible for the Nursing Science Master Programme of the University Utrecht (annual graduation forty to fifty students) and supervises around fifteen ongoing PhDstudies, 20 PhD students successfully graduated under her supervision. 

In 2013 she is appointed as Chief Nurse Officer, the Minister of Health’ supreme independent advisor on nursing. She was a member of the Dutch Health Council, chair of the research committee of the National Association of Nurses, is fellow of the European Association of Nursing Scientists and member of the Honour Society of Nursing Sigma Teta Tau International. She participated in numerous local and national committees regarding care for older people, nursing and quality of (applied) research. She has published over hundred twenty international peer-reviewed papers, as well as over fifty national practice publications and contributed to more than twenty books. She was the lead author on the recent Dutch Professional Profile for Nurses. In the last ten years she gave over a hundred invited lectures on national and international conferences.