A World of Potential and Profound Impact
When you sit down with Professor Brecht Cardoen (Vlerick Business School and KU Leuven), his message is crystal clear: innovation in healthcare must begin and end with the patient. He is indeed captivated by the latest technologies, but even more so by the underlying systems and structures that decide whether those technologies ever improve real lives.
From his first encounter with hospitals during his studies in applied economics, Brecht was hooked. Healthcare, he explains, is a sector unlike any other: it combines digitalisation, entrepreneurship, complex financing, constant uncertainty — and above all, profound societal impact. “It’s a sector that has everything. And that’s exactly why I stuck with it.”
Why Systemic Change is Harder than Innovation
For Brecht, the biggest challenge in healthcare isn’t a lack of good ideas or breakthrough technology; it’s the system itself.
“You might have a brilliant solution, but if the financing works differently, or if the investment is made by one party while the benefits go to another, it won’t scale. That’s the real challenge — it's something we don’t really see, but it determines everything.”
This systemic complexity explains why pilots so often remain pilots. Change requires multiple actors to move at once: hospitals, insurers, the government, and caregivers. If one link doesn’t shift, the whole chain resists.
Seeing Healthcare Through the Patient’s Eyes
What’s refreshing is Brecht’s insistence on starting with the patient.
“At some point, all of us become patients. In that moment, what do we really want? First, effective treatment. Second, confidence that our caregivers know us, without having to retell our story over and over again. That requires information sharing, smooth handovers, and trust.”
For Brecht, the promise of data and interoperability isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about human dignity: patients feeling known, supported, and confident in the process. And it’s about fairness, making sure high-quality care is accessible and affordable to all, not just the privileged few.
Financing Reform: From Sickness to Health
Of course, financing remains a central piece of the puzzle. Today’s system still rewards treating illness, not keeping people healthy. That, Brecht argues, isn’t sustainable.
He points to emerging models, bundled payments and value-based care, as steps in the right direction, but warns they’re complex and require coordination.
“Any change will have 'winners and losers', in a sense. That’s why it’s so tough. But if we don’t shift financing towards prevention and outcomes, the system simply won’t hold under the pressure of ageing, chronic conditions, and expensive technologies.”
A Cautious Optimist
Despite these challenges, Brecht stays optimistic. He stresses that progress has already been made; from cost transparency to the first moves towards bundles and a growing openness to prevention, even if it isn’t always recognised. These are signs, he believes, that we are heading in the right direction.
“Sometimes you simply need the courage to try. You can’t redesign the whole system on a blank sheet. But you can migrate step by step, test, and learn. That’s how progress happens.”
Shifting Perspectives in Healthcare
Brecht doesn’t talk about silver bullets. What matters to him is a shift in perspective.
“If we can show, starting from the patient journey, that care can be organised differently without losing quality or driving up cost, then we’ve proven change is possible. That’s already a breakthrough.”
For him, the roundtable confirmed the power of diverse stakeholders sitting together: daring to confront the system, testing new models, and proving that things can be done another way.
Because in the end, as he reminded us, “We’re doing this for the citizen. If we don’t put the patient at the centre, we’ve lost the point.”
