Job offer

Healthcare is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by rising chronic disease, workforce shortages, and the urgent need for more efficient, patient-centred models of care. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) has become a cornerstone of hybrid care, enabling follow-up outside the hospital while supporting quality, safety, and continuity of care. Heart failure - affecting around 240,000 people in the Netherlands - is one of the most common and fastest-growing chronic conditions to address. Yet large-scale, sustainable RPM remains limited, in large part because of the underlying health-IT infrastructure: centralised data integration approaches that copy, transform, and maintain data in multiple places, creating rigidity, high maintenance costs, limited scalability, and strong vendor dependencies. In response, a paradigm shift is emerging - data interaction - in which data remains in its source systems but becomes available in real time, contextually, and on demand to authorised users and applications. This Postdoc position offers the resources and collaboration to design, document, and further develop methodological insights around data interaction for cross-institutional, hybrid care, with a direct, real-world impact on the heart failure care pathway.

Máxima Medisch Centrum (MMC) and Catharina Ziekenhuis Eindhoven (CZE) already collaborate closely on RPM for heart failure within a regional ecosystem committed to innovation in digital and hybrid care, and a basic data-interaction system has already been realized. As Postdoc, you will lead the design of a unified, cross-institutional heart failure care pathway, develop a system-independent, care-process-driven data definition, and guide the implementation and evaluation of data interaction in daily clinical practice. You will also help shape the business and governance models that allow multiple MedTech vendors (LUSCII, BeterDichtbij, AIKON, Philips) to connect to the data-interaction layer, working towards a transferable foundation that can be scaled to other care pathways. A concrete goal for this Postdoc is to set up an effective design research agenda spanning clinical, technical, implementation, and business perspectives, in close cooperation with an Engineering Doctorate candidate and the clinical, IT, and vendor teams. Next to that, the Postdoc position will be connected to the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (eMTIC).

The position is offered within the Industrial Design Department, Computational Design Systems cluster. Research at the Industrial Design department investigates the everyday interactions between people and the highly interconnected technology that surrounds them. We measure, model, and design for the user experience as individuals engage with social-technological networks - at home, at work, in transit, and at leisure - and create innovations that impact systemic structures and groups of people, addressing large-scale issues such as health, mobility, and sustainability through iterative, circular research-through-design with strategic stakeholder alliances.

The position is embedded in the Computational Design Systems (CDS) cluster, established in 2023, which develops integrated technological and methodological frameworks that support design practice and research at scale - providing access to emerging technology platforms, a shared conceptual language, and a community of practice. CDS takes a systems approach to design, with core expertise spanning information systems, human-data interaction, and machine learning, making it a natural home for advancing data interaction in hybrid care.

This specific position is in close collaboration with Catharina Hospital Eindhoven and Maxima Medical Centre. You will spend most of your time within the hospital. For the connection to the development of the data interaction concept primarily at the Catharina hospital, and across the hospitals for the design of the heart failure care pathway.

Are you passionate about Design Research and the design of data-driven, hybrid care? Do you love working at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and complex multi-stakeholder ecosystems? Are you inspired by designing in the medical context and having a direct impact on quality of life for many patients? This Postdoc position will allow you to do all this in close cooperation with design researchers at Industrial Design TU/e, two leading regional hospitals (Máxima Medisch Centrum and Catharina Ziekenhuis Eindhoven), and MedTech partners such as LUSCII, BeterDichtbij, AIKON and Philips., Specific Requirements

• PhD in Industrial Design, HCI, Interaction Design, Health/Medical Informatics, Innovation Science or Management, or a comparable domain.
• Ability to conduct high quality academic research, demonstrated for instance by a relevant PhD thesis and relevant publication(s) on design research, healthcare innovation, data-driven or hybrid care, or health-IT and interoperability.
• Experience designing complex service or care processes in which process and technological solutions are effectively combined into workable, validated care pathways, with demonstrable skill in co-creation and (service) design methods such as journey maps, service blueprints, and stakeholder maps.
• Affinity with technical aspects of the data interaction concept. Hands on approach towards creating data definition and ability to set and translate technical requirements.
• Ability to communicate and cooperate with various clinical, technical, industrial, and academic partners and stakeholders, shown by relevant prior experiences and/or positive evaluations of these efforts.
• Excellent mastering of the Dutch and English language, good communication and project management skills (to be effective in the hospital setting designing the care pathway, including patient and professional insights, Dutch is a hard requirement).

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• Full-time employment for 2 years.
• Salary in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, scale 10 (min. € 4,241 max. € 5,538 gross per month).
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• High-quality training programs on general skills, didactics and topics related to research and valorization.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• Unlimited access to the modern on-campus TU/e Student Sports Center at an exceptionally affordable rate.
• Partially paid parental leave and an allowance for commuting, working from home and internet costs.
• A TU/e Postdoc Association that helps you to build a stronger and broader academic and personal network, and offers tailored support, training and workshops.
• A Staff Immigration Team is available for international candidates, as are a tax compensation scheme (the 30% facility) and a compensation for moving expenses.