TPM cares

“Staying healthy is at the heart of our e-health pilot”

Dr Luuk Simons

“After a career in ICT, I have for the last five years been active in the healthcare industry, focusing on e-health. By that, I don’t mean the automation of various processes, but on bringing the process of health
promotion closer to patients. Our starting point is that many conditions are largely avoidable and even reversible, such as age-related diabetes, obesity  and cardiovascular disease. The emphasis is not on getting better, but on  staying healthy. Behaviour is critical here and lifestyle interventions can help in the process."

“Health will form an increasingly large part of our work”

Dr Erik Pruyt

“The Policy Analysis section at TPM consists of methodologists who concentrate primarily on strategic long-term research into complex multi-actor system problems. Personally, I, together with a number of colleagues, focus on  the complex system dynamics of our uncertain system issues - it does not  matter to us whether it is about energy transitions, financial crises, shortage of minerals or problems in healthcare, provided it concerns system issues that are important, complex, and uncertain."

“Time for TPM to tackle the vexed question of ICT in the healthcare sector”

Dr Jan van den Berg

“Modern hospitals seem to be fabulously welloiled organisations with
smoothly running care processes. However, the situation behind the scenes is not so rosy: patients sometimes have to put up with long waiting lists, nursing staff can find it difficult to communicate with doctors who think they know best, managers do not always get the information they need to be able to make the  right decisions, and the introduction of the electronic health record (abbreviated  in Dutch as EPD) is constantly being postponed. And yet, is it not the EPD that is supposed to be the answer to so many problems and bring about a major improvement in quality?"

“We challenge students using present-day problems from the healthcare sector”

Ir. Inge van Bruinessen

“Health, technology and entrepreneurship make up an interesting combination, and with the increasingly ageing of society, health is very much a hot topic. At TU Delft, too, the subject is a key area of focus, as shown by the ‘health innovation & entrepreneurship (HIE) minor, for example, developed by the Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship. It was launched this academic year, with twenty enterprising students from various faculties taking part."

Read the complete articles in the Quarterly VIII/4, December 2010