Danielle Vossebeld

Background

About Danielle Vossebeld

Eureka, I am a systems thinker! In my research at University Medical Center in Utrecht around 8 years ago, I noticed the tight interdependencies between people, processes, products, and the contexts. Expected events resulted in unexpected consequences, or more precise, the failure of a simple device. Even though I did not know the theory at the time, I had a special person in my network who steered me towards ‘systems thinking’ and ‘complex systems’. My research in the hospital on developing better (medical) devices for nurses started with a co-design approach, involving nurses in the development and acquisition process. With my deep dive in the hospital, I drowned myself in data, in which ‘suddenly’ patterns emerged. My eureka moment. Subsequently, I shifted towards a systems thinking approach, to understand why nurses won’t get the products they need. This deviation from my preliminary research plan ánd recovering from Long Covid cost me time, but it also gave me so many new insights and too many books. My work at HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht involved education on topics including health technology, complex systems, product development, ergonomics, co-design, sketching, and more. I am also affiliated with the research group Co-Design for my research project and knowledge sharing. At the moment, I am also coordinator of the program Design for Health, where we organise projects with students and health organisations (e.g. hospitals, MedTech companies, …), support health technology education, and connect stakeholders for further collaborations in health technology.