Human-Centered Information Exchange

The end user

Who is at the centre, and why

Health and social care exist by the grace of people. Yet systems and digital solutions are still too often built without the people they are intended for having any say. We believe this must change. That is why the end user is central to everything we do. An end user is everyone who actively creates, enriches or uses data in health or social care. We distinguish four groups, from most to least important:

The human being

citizens, residents, patients, clients and their relatives

Health and social care professionals

people who directly provide care, support and assistance

Staff of care organisations and networks

such as policy officers, quality managers and administrative personnel

Researchers and data experts

who contribute to insight, policy and innovation

This order is a deliberate choice: the system ultimately exists for the human being. Each group works in daily practice for the groups above them. This vision also forms the core of Mission Copernicus, the movement we developed for human-centred information provision in health and social care. End users determine what is needed and how that must work in practice. Technology comes after. We call that: working above the bonnet.

Read more about our vision on the end user

Current situation

Creating recognition

There are plenty of good plans. But why do they so rarely get off the ground? Digital data exchange in health and social care regularly stalls. Not because the technology fails, but because clear roles are missing, agreements are not embedded and the voice of the people it concerns carries too little weight. Plans struggle to get started. Promising pilots do not scale up. And when project funding stops, progress stops too. The result is familiar to everyone working in this field: fragmentation, delay and a system that does not deliver what it should. While the urgency is very much there.

Our approach

Things rarely go wrong because of the technology. They go wrong where people, organisations and systems fail to connect. That is why we always look at three things simultaneously: what the end user needs, how governance is organised and how the technical infrastructure supports that. Governance means: who takes which decisions, and who is responsible for what.

Our core principles:

The human being as the starting point

Not as a final check, but as the foundation. Citizens and professionals determine what digital systems must be capable of. We ensure that voice is formally embedded in design and decision-making.

Approaching things from the individual support network

Health and social care are not a chain from A to B, but a network of people and organisations that simultaneously create and use information. That requires a different approach from traditional chain-based solutions.

Sustainable embedding, not just project results

Good solutions must not disappear when project funding stops. We work towards governance that holds: clear roles, shared responsibilities and decision-making that continues to function after a programme ends.

Data and technology as a public good

Digital infrastructure in health and social care must remain in service of society. We actively work to prevent vendor lock-in, which means organisations do not become tied to a single supplier. And we ensure that decision-making authority over data and technology does not drift towards commercial or administrative interests.

Our services

We work with organisations that want to make health and social care more human-centred. We do this in three ways.

From strategy to execution. We help organisations with questions around the position of end users, network collaboration, governance and sustainable embedding. Both at national level and in regional and organisational trajectories.

Vision only becomes workable when you can do something with it. We develop concrete tools: scans, guidelines, e-learning and research methods that organisations can use directly.

Our own method to measure what an intervention truly delivers for the citizen. Not in terms of output, but in terms of control over their own situation, quality of life, greater insight into their own data and reduced administrative burden.

View all services

Our philosophy

Our approach is rooted in a clear vision: health and social care in the digital age must revolve around the human being. We have elaborated that vision in Mission Copernicus: a movement and an intellectual framework for human-centred information provision.

The core: digital systems and data exchange must not be built around the human being, but carried by them. That requires a different way of looking at decision-making, technology and governance in health and social care.

Our trajectories

We work on trajectories where governance, end-user involvement and networked care come together. A selection from our practice:

Maternity care - VIPP Babyconnect

In the maternity care sector, we helped to give end users a genuine voice in governance and the implementation of digital data exchange. Babyconnect is now regarded as one of the inspiring examples of human-centred governance in Dutch health care.

Palliative care

In palliative care, we are working on governance around advance care planning: who takes which role, how do you embed that structurally, and how do you ensure commitment from all parties involved? The outcomes feed into the nationally launched PZP coalition.

Paediatric palliative care

Children in the palliative phase have their own distinct network of care and support around them. We guide the design of governance and proof of concepts for an information standard that does justice to that complexity.

Generic functions

From the perspective of the end user, we assess whether the generic functions being developed by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport truly align with practice. Using the Mission Copernicus guideline, we gather insights on usability, coherence and added value.

What if health and social care truly revolves around people?

Rehumanisation as a starting point