Prof. Richard Grol, Director
Prof. Richard Grol is director of the Centre for Quality of Care Research (WOK), a centre linked to the universities of Nijmegen en Maastricht in the Netherlands, aiming at research and development in the field of quality improvement, evidence based practice and guidelines, quality assessment and indicators, etc.
Prof. Grol studied law and psychology, was trained as psychotherapist, but works for over 25 years on quality improvement in medicine, mostly in primary care. He is advisor of the Dutch College of GPs, was the president of the European Association on Quality in Family Practice for 10 years (1992-2002).
He has written over 300 peer reviewed papers and more than 20 books, mostly on issues related to quality in health care and the implementation of change. He was one of the editors of the Oxford Textbook of Primary Medical Care (published in 2003) and editor of a BMJ book on Quality Improvement Research. At the end of 2004 a comprehensive book on ‘Implementation of change in patient care’ will be issued (Elsevier).

Centre for Quality of Care Research (WOK)
The Centre is a collaboration of the universities of Nijmegen and Maastricht in the Netherlands and aims at research, development and education on the topic of quality in health care. About 50 projects are performed continuously, over 40 PhD projects. Almost 100 persons are working in the Centre and involved in research or education.
Topics that are studied are related to evidence based practice, clinical guidelines, quality improvement and management strategies, implementation of change, patient empowerment and shared decision making, quality assessment and indicator development, etc.
WOK coordinated quite a number of international research consortia, e.g. patient evaluation of care (EUROPEP-instrument), development of indicators for practice management (EPA), criteria for guideline development (AGREE) or methods for implementing change in practice.

More information can be found on website www.wokresearch.nl