Monday, December 15, 2025
Staff shortages in healthcare, persistent health disparities, the call for greater attention to prevention and the practical application of new technologies like AI: how can we better support the (healthcare) needs around us through research, innovation, and implementation projects? This is one of the goals we have set for ourselves for 2026.
Over the past year, we facilitated important societal discussions and identified healthcare issues, including through our transdisciplinary programs and living labs, in developing the Delta Action Agenda, and through our Social Council.
In our anniversary year, marking Medical Delta's 20th anniversary, societal issues are shaping the agendas of our programs and living labs even more emphatically. The solid foundation our knowledge partners have established in Medical Delta over the past 20 years enables us, together with all stakeholders, to address the themes emerging from healthcare practice and society. For example, on the health themes that were established in the Delta Action Agenda on behalf of the Province of Zuid-Holland: a healthy food environment, vital and resilient residents and a healthy living environment.
Action Agenda for a Healthier Zuid-Holland
Dozens of Zuid-Holland knowledge institutions, social partners, healthcare institutions, and businesses provided input for the Delta Action Agenda. This occurred, among other events, during the Medical Delta working conference in April 2025. Medical Delta organized this working conference in collaboration with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities and ZHIA (Zuid-Holland Impact Alliance), and with the participation of Convergence Health & Technology, among others.
The action agenda for a healthier Zuid-Holland will be implemented in 2026, including by scaling up successful innovation projects.
Reducing Labor Shortages with Healthcare Technology
We also took the lead in public-private partnerships in 2025. Through the new WorkTech public-private partnership program, we are providing innovation funding from Health~Holland for labor-saving healthcare technologies.
We established this program together with InnovationQuarter and ZWconnect, and we are implementing it jointly. Furthermore, the ZorgTech innovation program—which we developed in collaboration with the province of Zuid-Holland, TNO, the Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Region (MRDH), and InnovationQuarter—is now in its sixth year.
Initiatives like these, alike the Medical Delta programs and living labs, demonstrate the value of cross-domain and transdisciplinary collaboration. This is especially important in Zuid-Holland, one of Europe's most innovative regions. Because while much is happening here, or perhaps precisely because so much is happening here, it's crucial to align agendas and seek collaboration on shared healthcare goals.
Innovating and implementing based on healthcare needs
Over the past year, we have gathered healthcare needs from the 'outside' in various ways. We will continue this process while simultaneously paying more attention to the 'inside': our knowledge partners. Together with them, the input from societal and practical partners is further integrated and concretized in the innovation and implementation projects of our programs, living labs, and projects.
Our living labs and programs demonstrate that constant interaction between societal partners, (healthcare) practitioners, companies, and researchers is essential. Innovating and implementing together with (healthcare) practitioners is our credo, partly inspired by Medical Delta professor Andrea Evers, who passed away far too early last summer. Her legacy and mindset will resonate for years to come, including in the Healthy Society Program in which we participate.
Leveraging Connections
Last year, we bid farewell to Frank Willem Jansen as chair of Medical Delta and are forging new paths with his successor, Sanne de Vries. Sanne is both a lecturer at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and a special professor at Leiden University, thus embodying the collaboration that characterizes Medical Delta.
A key benchmark for the status of our partnership will be the midterm reviews in the second half of 2026. The programs and living labs launched in 2024 will then be halfway through their program planning. This is an opportune time to take stock and address topics relevant to the broader transdisciplinary societies within which the programs and living labs fall. By sharing experiences, shared challenges, and opportunities, and addressing them transdisciplinary, we leverage our knowledge, expertise, and collaborative strengths, building the foundation for the next round of programming.
The way we collaborate and position this collaboration is making us increasingly visible internationally. This offers opportunities for the region. But new opportunities are also emerging within Zuid-Holland itself, for example, by more explicitly linking the medical domain to the social, physical, and economic spheres.
We continue to seek to optimally utilize collaborations: for example, with other partnerships, vocational education (mbo), the business community, and healthcare organizations, all building on the foundation laid twenty years ago.
Ideas, projects, research suggestions, collaboration opportunities: we remain open to them for the next twenty years and warmly invite you to participate.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the Medical Delta events and wish you happy holidays and a healthy and vibrant 2026!
On behalf of the Medical Delta team,
Drs. David de Glint, Managing Director
Prof. Dr. Sanne de Vries, Chair
