Implementation is not the last step after research. It is part of the scientific method.
Most of what I have learned about medical technology, I learned when it met clinical practice. A device that works on the bench reveals new problems in the treatment room. A care pathway that works in one hospital stalls in the next. Each time, implementation produced the questions that drove the next round of research.
That is why I treat bringing technology into care as a scientific activity in its own right: every intervention, and every implementation, is an opportunity to learn. This page describes what that has meant in practice, what it has taught me, and how I work with hospitals, companies and funders.
Two decades of bringing biomedical electromagnetic technology from simulation to the clinic, a company (Sensius), and regional programmes for scaling technology-enabled care, including the Taskforce Implementation of e/MTIC (formerly CICL/e).
Deep hyperthermia in the head and neck was long considered impractical: the region is anatomically complex and full of critical structures. My PhD work produced the HYPERcollar, the first applicator designed for it, using simulation to decide what to build.
The first clinical treatments at Erasmus MC showed that the device was only part of the answer. Patient positioning and temperature measurement turned out to be new challenges in their own right. Those findings drove the next decade of work: patient-specific treatment planning, software (VEDO) that brought planning into the treatment room, a redesigned applicator (HYPERcollar3D) introduced into clinical routine in 2015, and MR thermometry to measure what the models predict.
To make the technology available beyond one hospital, we co-founded Sensius in 2015. The journey continues in the TANCA-I phase I trial and the Eurostars project SENS-THERM. The lesson: each step from model to patient to market needed different expertise and different partners than the step before.
Within CICL/e we selected two remote patient management pilots, not because they were the most advanced, but because together they would expose different barriers. At Catharina Hospital, wearable monitoring supported same-day discharge after bariatric surgery. At Máxima MC, continuous heart-rate monitoring aimed to detect deterioration in heart failure earlier.
Both stalled, and that was the most valuable result. Copying the bariatric solution to a neighbouring hospital still required a new business case, a redesigned workflow and a separate approval route. In heart failure, no available device met all requirements at once: certification, affordability, interoperability and scalability. The barriers were well known in theory. The pilots showed how they play out in practice, and what it takes to overcome them.
A technology only spreads when other centres can trust it. With partners in the Netherlands and Germany, we compared MR-guided deep hyperthermia systems in multi-institution phantom studies, quantified MR thermometry accuracy, and developed imaging-based criteria for selecting the patients most likely to benefit. Shared quality assurance turned an expert technique into one that can be used reliably elsewhere.
The regional initiative of Máxima MC, Catharina Hospital, Kempenhaeghe and TU/e to address the structural barriers to scaling technology-enabled care. Formerly CICL/e, where I was founding lead (kwartiermaker) on behalf of TU/e and later a board member. Now a member of the steering group.
As Scientific Director of the Center for Care and Cure Technology Eindhoven, I support cross-disciplinary medtech research and valorisation across TU/e's Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics departments.
As honorary Professor in Radiation Oncology, I work with the Hyperthermia Unit where much of our technology was first used in patients.
As executive board member of TTNL, I contribute to a national community for thermal therapies in clinical care.
Co-founder and technical lead of Sensius, which develops planning-guided head and neck hyperthermia systems.
Advising medtech companies on technological and clinical R&D roadmaps: what to build, how to validate it, and how to bring it into clinical use.
I am interested in collaborations where research and implementation reinforce each other:
Please connect via LinkedIn or my TU/e profile. For wider reflections, see Science & Society.
In our experience the barriers are rarely the technology itself. Pilots stall because they depend on a single enthusiastic clinician, because devices, platforms and hospital systems do not interoperate, because each small innovation needs its own business case, and because board-level support does not translate into protected capacity. Benefits appear at system level while costs and risks are carried by one department.
CICL/e (Center for Impact in Clinical Care Eindhoven) was an initiative of Máxima MC, Catharina Hospital, Kempenhaeghe and Eindhoven University of Technology to systematically address the structural barriers to implementing and scaling technology-enabled care. It continues as the Taskforce Implementation of the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC).
Not automatically. Copying a proven solution to a neighbouring hospital still required a new local business case, a redesigned workflow and a new approval route. Scaling needs shared infrastructure and governance, not only proven technology.
Beyond developing new technology, a technical university can re-engineer existing devices to meet clinical and interoperability requirements, develop algorithms for detection and decision support, design missing system components, and educate engineers who can work in both research and implementation.