Research

In my role as senior researcher, I am engaged in various national and international research projects. This page gives an overview over some of these projects and research activities.

Value Sensitive eHealth Design (Research Line)
As senior researcher at RRD, I have the privilege to develop my own research line. Being passionate about supporting human and societal values in the design of technology, the main aims of my research line are (1) supporting value sensitive eHealth design and evaluation activities, and (2) removing the abstract nature of values in eHealth. To achieve these aims, several objectives have been identified related to: VSD4eHealth methodology, application of value sensitive eHealth design in concrete projects, and dissemination. The VSD approach will be extended and advanced with a particular focus on technological innovations in healthcare (e.g., eHealth services, the use of big data / machine learning / artificial intelligence in health and care). VSD methods will be applied and further developed in concrete research and development (R&D) projects to investigate values and value tensions in relation to eHealth applications. The identified values will be transformed into implications for design and therefore inform the development of the technology. Conducting VSD in R&D projects allows not only to develop and test new methods but also evaluate whether the identified values could be successfully accounted for in the design. The outcome of these activities is a collection of concrete values in actual eHealth applications, realised through a specific set of methods that will be disseminated through workshops, conference presentations and publications. Blog posts about VSD can be found here.

RE-SAMPLE – REal-time data monitoring for Shared, Adaptive, Multi-domain and Personalised prediction and decision making for Long-term Pulmonary care Ecosystems
Mar 2021 – Feb 2025

Coordinated by the University of Twente, the large-scale European project RE-SAMPLE will utilize real-world data monitoring and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve understanding of COPD and comorbidity (two or more chronic conditions). The aim is to ensure that patients with complex chronic conditions receive the right care at the right time faster. This type of care focuses on the individual instead of solely the illness. This innovative e-Health technology will be implemented in three countries with hundreds of patients diagnosed with COPD and comorbidity. The researchers will begin at three test locations representing the various hospital systems in Europe. Hundreds of patients of hospitals in Italy and Estonia and the Medisch Spectrum Twente (MST) hospital in Enschede will be participating in the project. The personalised and tailor-made healthcare for these patients will be offered in the form of a virtual companionship programme. Within RE-SAMPLE, RRD will elicit the needs, expectations and values of end-users and stakeholders, draft the service models for the new service and the three hospital sites, and assess the usability and potential clinical and social impact of the RE-SAMPLE programme for COPD patients. RE-SAMPLE is funded under the Horizon 2020 innovation action programme (grant agreement No 965315). Blog posts about RE-SAMPLE can be found here.

Pharaon – Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing
Dec 2019 – Nov 2023

The main motivation of the Pharaon project is our ageing society and the need for tools that improve the quality of life, independence and overall health of older adults. Although several services and solutions might already exist today, they often have a limited scope and the market is also quite fragmented. What Pharaon aims to do is to integrate existing digital services, devices, and tools into open platforms that can be readily deployed while maintaining the dignity of older adults and enhancing their independence, safety, and capabilities. This project is funded under the Horizon 2020 innovation action programme (grant agreement No 857188). Blog posts about Pharaon can be found here.

TOPFIT CitizenLab
Sep 2019 – Dec 2022

TOPFIT Citizenlab aims to introduce and enable Citizen Science for Health in the Netherlands, specifically in region Twente. Citizen Science is understood of research where citizens actively contribute to science compared to be a respondent or participant in studies. Different types of citizen science have been identified (contributory, collaborative, co-created, extreme CS) with varying levels of involvement and participation of citizens in the project. RRD is leading Pilot 3, which focuses on Citizens and New Technology. The goal is to understand the optimal way to develop and evaluate technology and to embed technology in the service model using a citizen science approach. The Citizenlab is powered by the Twente Regional Deal and receives financial support by the Central Government’s Regional Budget, the Province of Overijssel, the Region of Twente and the Twente Board. Blog posts about Citizenlab can be found here.

SmartWork – Smart Age-friendly Living and Working Environment
Jan 2019 – Mar 2022

The ultimate aim of the SmartWork project is to build a worker-centric systems to support work ability sustainability, in other words to help the older adult staying actively working for as long as desired. To achieve this aim, the SmartWork platform integrates unobtrusive sensing and modelling of the worker state using a suite of novel services for context- and worker-aware adaptive work support. The SmartWork project is funded under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation action programme (grant agreement No 826343).

Previous research groups that I collaborate with on a more irregular basis:

DOME Consortium
DOME (Development of Online Medical Records and E-health services) is a collaborative consortium between Karlstad University, Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, University of Lund, University of Skövde, Uppsala University, and Örebro University. The purpose of the DOME consortium is to build knowledge about the development and use of eHealth services and is based on studies of e-health projects.

Human, Technology & Organisation (HTO)
HTO (Human, Technology & Organisation) is a research group that studies the relationships and dynamics of Health, Technology, and Organisation with the goal of creating knowledge that support sustainable development and utilization of ICT.