Even before the conversation truly begins, the tone is set: Karin’s ambitions and goals are crystal clear, and she doesn’t beat around the bush. As a passionate leader in healthcare, she builds the systems that allow caregivers to actually care.
At our Healthcare Roundtable, she was the anchor: pragmatic and determined to turn pilots into concrete results. Now we look back on that Roundtable to look ahead: what next steps can we take together to achieve tangible outcomes? Not simply launching new initiatives, but learning from what works — and in doing so, helping to build the care of tomorrow.
Karin grew up in a home where the door was always open: warmth, sharing, community. Not a clinician’s calling; a builder’s.
She began in local employment policy: second-chance education, social restaurants, transition projects—practical engines of opportunity.
A decade as chief of cabinet taught her how to make impact through policy: bringing the right people around the table, setting direction, daring to decide. At a mutuality, she saw that home-care services deserved their own organisation. That led to the birth of i-mens in 2020, and Van Mossevelde has been CEO ever since.
Today i-mens is one of the largest home-care organisations in Flanders: home nursing, family care and daily living support for thousands of people each day, so that they can remain safe and independent at home.
i-mens also gives family carers the occasional breathing space. That scale gives Karin a rare vantage point: she sees where the system sticks, and how to unstick it.
“I’m passionate, but focused. Once I’ve weighed the risks, I jump. That focus, and courage, is what you need to move a system.”
We know the pressures: ageing, chronic conditions, workforce scarcity, and fragmented data. Another layer of analysis won’t save us.
“The problem is clear. What we need is decisiveness and the courage to do things differently. Will it be 100% right the first time? Of course not. But start anyway. Prevention won’t show results tomorrow, but if we don’t start now, the system won’t hold.”
The pilot trap kills momentum. By “pilot trap” we mean the pattern where promising initiatives remain stuck in temporary, grant-funded experiments—without structural financing, without standardisation, without scaling—so energy and learning evaporate.
Karin’s antidote is disarmingly simple: fewer grand blueprints, more iterative work. Begin where incentives align.
“Start where the hospital, the GP, the nurse and the patient all benefit. That is your first lab.”
Pick the seam where today’s system frays—safe discharge, seamless handover, geriatrics anchored in the community and in residential care homes—then build the new while the old still runs. Agree on clear rules (for example: no late Friday discharges without coordination for patients with complex care needs). Stand up a digital cockpit for handovers. Measure what matters: fewer readmissions, faster first visits, greater patient confidence, and more time for the team. When proof arrives, make it the standard. That is how a system really moves.
Systems don’t move themselves; people do, and not everyone can or will.
Don’t try to convert everyone. Find one decisive geriatrician, one enthusiastic hospital, one motivated GP network, one home-care anchor. Make it work for them—and for their ledger—then show the results. Innovation starts small with pioneers who show how it can be done differently. Only then does the mainstream follow, in the safety of the group. The fastest way to change minds is to change outcomes.
“Sometimes you just have to say it out loud and do it. Launch the co-operative—like we did with care centre Z-Plus, which will play a key role in the future for remote care. Break a pillar. You need courage.”
For Karin, that courage is also about building ecosystems: in home nursing, in regional care hubs, in the digital platforms that let professionals actually work together.
Courage paired with named win-wins keeps partnerships alive. If a partner sees no concrete return—money, reputation, access, capacity—the collaboration will fade. Name the upside from day one.
Her optimism is earned. She points to Z+ sparking practical innovation; umbrella organisations quietly moving towards one horizon; and the energy of the roundtable, but only if that energy hardens into two or three labs with owners, timing and clear metrics. Crucially, she sees collaboration on data as the connective tissue of the system: by sharing data, you see where bottlenecks are, coordinate better, and build solutions that last.
Hope isn’t a mood; it’s a work plan.
Sceptical of talk, relentless about doing:
“Choose a problem with a real win-win. Find the believers. Start. Prove it works—and then scale.”
Every durable change begins as a concrete, imperfect first step. Take it now. Measure it well. Standardise what works. Let tomorrow be grateful you started today.