On October 4 Steven de Waal is one of the speakers at the IndustryForum Healthcare in Sweden that explores the latest trends in the healthcare digitalization and paints a picture of the industry future.

Co-working with the disruptive patient: How to change healthcare in ICT tools and medical processes?

Dr. Steven P.M. de Waal has a background in strategic consultancy in public services, especially healthcare. More than 10 years ago he founded one of the first private Thinktanks in the Netherlands: Public SPACE. This stands for Strategies for Public And Civil Entrepreneurs (SPACE). Its main mission is promoting and stimulating active citizenship and social entrepreneurship in the public domain. His dissertation is, in line with this mission, about the value(s) of civil leaders (Eleven 2014).
This is of course also the background of his lecture:  that the power and influence of citizens is currently increased mainly by the worldwide revolution in new social ICT-technologies. These technologies are the cause of disruption in the market, but also already have a major impact on politics and public services, like healthcare. That’s why he calls it the rise of the disruptive citizen.

As this is in line with his longstanding mission he is positive about and welcoming to this new power of citizens. He deviates from many spokesmen and -women who try to warn about this impact, who claim citizens are not intelligent enough to make their own choices or defend current political systems and political hierarchical cultures and supplyside attitudes. Of course he knows and has studied civil society, including its negative characteristics, but he thinks it doesn’t undermine the positive value and contribution of civil action and pressure, coming from this new power and current civil demands.

The strategic reality is that this new power of citizens is fundamental for their new mentality, is here to stay and healthcare better adapts and learns how to cope with it. In his view it is not only a technological revolution, but in its effect mainly a social revolution in mentality and organizational power. It’s not just technology, stupid, it is mentality! He will show how in healthcare it will also dramatically change the way doctors and medical processes function. He will give many examples of current right and wrong answers in healthcare.

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