Maastricht UMC+ speaks out loudly in its vision 'Strategy Digital Care 2025' about its ambition to become the leader in the Netherlands in the field of digitization. According to the MUMC+ board, digitization is no longer a wish but simply a necessity. Maastricht UMC+ is therefore fully committed to digital solutions and already has strong practical examples in this area, such as an app that helps patients with cardiac arrhythmia (the TeleCheck-AF) and the 'MijnIBDCoach' app for people with chronic intestinal complaints.

Digitization is unimaginable in today's healthcare landscape. Home monitoring, image calling, m-health, e-health, smart AI-driven prevention programs, smart glasses and numerous other technological solutions are increasingly being deployed to take the pressure off care. The Integral Care Agreement explicitly points out that digital tools are needed to keep care accessible and affordable. Digital care can be used for prevention but also for diagnostics. 

Strategy Digital Care 2025

So with the launch of the Digital Care 2025 Strategy, Maastricht UMC+ is now loudly expressing its ambition to be a national leader in  the field of digitization. According to the Executive Board, the university hospital has plenty of room to develop, research and implement new digital applications. An important goal, for example, is that three quarters of all chronically ill patients at Maastricht UMC+ will be using smart home monitoring options by 2025. Furthermore, the ambition is that one in three policy contacts will take place digitally via image calls, apps or e-coaches and that eight in ten  of Maastricht patients will have used a pre-hospital intake at home in preparation for admission or surgery. But the ambition goes a bit further than all this: there is also an explicit commitment to digital prevention tools, predictive AI models and other  digital options with which Maastricht wants to be an explicit frontrunner in 2025.

Digitalization: not a wish but a necessity

Dr. Helen Mertens (chairman of the Executive Board) and Dr. Nicole van Eldik (digital care program manager) are convinced that smart, digital care offers unprecedented opportunities to deliver the right care in the right place, without patients and healthcare professionals losing control. On the MUMC+ website, Mertens says: "Societal developments, technological possibilities, tightness in the labor market and the ever-increasing cost of care make digitization not just a wish, but a necessity. People must have easy access to good and affordable care and resources. New technology and healthcare innovations make that possible through faster, more efficient and more effective intervention."  

Mertens also emphasizes that it's also about successful digital initiatives being shared and implemented more widely outside the hospital walls: "That's where it still sometimes goes wrong, because of regulations or finances, but especially cold feet when innovations can be scaled up. Why wouldn't we want to adopt proven effective applications from each other? Because only then can we really make an impact on a large scale to keep the entire health care system sustainable and accessible in the long term."

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