5 years We Care: Interdisciplinary research to improve patient care

What is the strength of We Care? 

"The strength of this project lies, among other things, in the fact that we have established a very efficient collaboration with relatively limited resources, based on three clear core themes: 'Shared Decision Making', 'Data Science', and 'E-health'. The research projects had to meet only a few conditions. They had to focus on improving patient care in one of the core themes, and research proposals had to be submitted by a scientist from Tilburg University together with a professional from ETZ. The project has been set up from the beginning to be very accessible, allowing us to quickly get started. For some projects, it remained at exploration and knowledge exchange, while for others, involved doctors and scientists delved directly into the depth together. It started as a testing ground for interdisciplinary research."

What insights has this testing ground produced? 

That human interaction is truly central to this collaboration. Ultimately, collaborating with others, being able to listen to each other and to the needs of a societal partner, is what makes a collaboration flourish. That determines whether a project succeeds. 

Furthermore, this collaboration makes the added value and relevance of social sciences and data science for the hospital clearly visible. Precisely because we do not have a medical faculty, we have a very complementary role. I believe that our expertise could also be valuable to the hospital beyond the current We Care project, for example in logistics, HR policy, sustainable employability, or business operations.

We want to continue the projects within the current collaboration, but also think and invest on a larger scale

What can still be improved within the collaboration? 

At the start of the collaboration, it was announced that all faculties of Tilburg University could compete for research funding, on the condition that they collaborated with parties within ETZ. We now see that it is mainly TSHD and TSB that are involved in most projects, because at that time they had the most expertise in the chosen themes. I hope that in the future we can start a research project in which interdisciplinary collaboration can be even greater than it is now; for example, from a legal, social, economic, and ethical perspective. The most important thing is that the connection has been made. We can now look at bigger steps for the future, to further advance our expertise and research.

What can we expect from We Care in the future? 

The themes that We Care focuses on remain very important for the future. Therefore, we want to continue to join forces in this area and continue the collaboration. In addition, we will bridge more towards our broad academic workspaces, such as Digital Health and Mental Wellbeing. This way, our knowledge can be spread even more widely. We want to continue the projects within the current collaboration, but also think and invest on a larger scale.

More information about We Care

Watch the video about We Care

Jan Heyligers, vascular surgeon at ETZ: "I myself am a huge advocate for innovation. Anything we can seize upon to collectively ensure that new treatment methods that are proven to be meaningful can be brought into the hospital, I am strongly in favor of."

Jan Erik Bunt, pediatrician at ETZ, also expresses positivity about the collaboration: "The collaboration is so powerful because clinicians know what is needed on the work floor and recognize both the dangers and opportunities. Researchers at Tilburg University have a lot of expertise in the scientific underpinning of those processes and their analysis. In that aspect, we help each other."

Date of publication: 17 April 2024