UMIT – Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology
As a modern health university, UMIT has specialized in new vocational fields and research areas and thus responds to the latest challenges in health care and technology.
With its focus areas Mechatronics, Medical Technology, Medical and Biomedical Informatics, Psychology, Physiotherapy, Health Sciences, Nursing Science and Gerontology, supplemented by university training courses, UMIT offers high-quality academic education and advanced training in the fields that have turned out to be of increasing importance in modern health care and technology.
UMIT offers research and teaching of the highest quality in close cooperation with the Tyrolean Universities of Applied Sciences and national and international research institutions. Internationally acknowledged professors, visiting professors and lecturers, a state-of-the-art infrastructure as well as high-quality study programs turn UMIT in Hall into a small but excellent, as well as privileged, university.
Department of Nursing Science and Gerontology
At the Department of Nursing Science & Gerontology, nursing and age are considered a responsibility of society as a whole which must be proceeded with in an interdisciplinary and holistic manner. A clear orientation towards the requirements of nursing practice and towards the needs of the people and society characterize the methods and the prioritization of the individual research areas.
Thus, through interdisciplinary collaboration within the university and beyond its walls, the Department of Nursing Science & Gerontology addresses the following topics within the scope of research, development and teaching:
- People in Old Age (housing, life and autonomy in old age, care dependency; aging in cultural, social and economic contexts; effects of the demographic development…)
- Nursing Interventions and Quality of Care (e.g. assessment instruments; effectiveness and efficiency; nursing-related pain and symptom management; user perspectives and patient preferences; decision making...)
- Training & Professionalization in Nursing (development of new skills profiles; development of new study programs; ...)
- Innovative Care Concepts (e.g. palliative care and hospice movement; care forms for patients with dementia; health promotion – preventive home visit; case and care management; ...)
Staff profiles of UDINE-C members
Prof. Dr. Christa Them
Prof. Dr. Christa Them is a RN and Head of the Department for Nursig Science and Gerontology at UMIT and also Head for the Institute of Nursing Science (since 2006). She is an acknowledged expert in the sector of nursing science with postdoctoral lecture qualification and has been Rector of UMIT, the Private University for Health an Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology from 2010-2014. In 2013 Christa Them was awarded the “Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria” by the Office of the Austrian Federal President, Vienna. From 1991 to 2006 she was in the position as head of the nursing education department at the AZW training center for healthcare professions in Innsbruck. Christa Them has been pursuing an ongoing academic career. She attended the diploma studies of pedagogics in Vienna as well as the doctoral studies of pedagogics at the University of Innsbruck. In 2003, she was promoted to professor in health sciences under special consideration of nursing science at UMIT in Hall in Tirol. In 2006, she was appointed university professor at UMIT.
Assoc.-Prof. MMag. Dr. Eva Schulc
Assoc.-Prof. MMag. Dr. Eva Schulc started her academic career as physiotherapist and Sports- and Health Scientist. In 2010, she finished her doctoral studies in Nursing Science at UMIT – Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall in Tirol, Austria, and was appointed Assistant Professor in 2015. In 2017, she was awarded docendi in Nursing Science for her habilitation thesis entitled „ Community-Based Health Promotion and Prevention of Elderly People “at UMIT. She was appointed Associate Professor in 2018. Her research focus is on Public Health Nursing and Healthcare research.
Eva-Maria Mair
Eva-Maria Mair works as an assistant for scientific communication and administration at the Institute of Nursing Science. She has experience as a journalist and continues to bring the issues of scientists as well as breathtaking findings of the department to the target audience. She also organizes scientific meetings and assists the scientists in publication and presentation matters. Further, she is responsible for the administrative handling of third-party funded projects, providing a point of intersection between grant agencies, the leading project scientists and the university department for third-party funds.
Alessandra Gessl, BSc., MA.
Mrs. Alessandra Gessl is a research associate and doctoral candidate in Public Health at UMIT – Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall in Tirol, Austria. With a background in Psychology (BSc), she obtained her master’s degree (MA) in Health Management in 2017 with her thesis on personality, resilience and technology acceptance among the future elderly. She is among the first to investigate and publish on the link between resilience and technology acceptance. Her research interests lie in health economics, public health, and innovations in and for healthcare.
