About the project

In this project the thinking paradigms in healthcare are explored, where and why they are successful and where they are not. To explain the idea, the two following examples are illustrative. One is the dominance of large clinical trials as leading in treatment advice and guidelines, at the cost of other types of evidence. Biased trial populations and the concept of one-size-fits-all, do not align well with reality that is highly diverse, dynamic, and often does not fit well with man-made categories. A second and different example lies in the practical and scientific approaches in safety in healthcare. The dominant approach is relying on outcome measures and causal relationships, that are fallible in safety science. Whereas safety science embraces a variety of ‘evidence’ from probabilistic, psychological, and systems science approaches to large success. While in healthcare, the lack of safety is considered an ongoing crisis (WHO). Because the way of thinking seems to be elemental in these matters, we aim to explore this as a topic of its own.

This question is a recurring theme within collaborative projects and thus explored in interaction with several colleagues in our faculty, including theoretical experts from the Ethics & Philosophy section.