MakeHealth

How can personal fabrication labs (like Fab Labs) and maker spaces be used to support stakeholders in healthcare in creating new solutions?

Due to the rise of digital fabrication and the unlimited access to knowledge that the internet provides us, everyone is able to make 'almost anything'. Big laboratories or industries are no longer a prerequisite in doing so.

In MakeHealth we team up with users. Together with patients, health professionals (in education), hospitals, (young) designers, artists and healthcare entrepreneurs, we explore how stakeholders in healthcare themselves can be creator of solutions, that support the illness and care processes and that contribute significantly to the empowerment of patients.

Quality of life is paramount. Furthermore, we also conduct the public debate about the possibilities and limits of makeable care and empowerment of patients. This practice is now embedded in the European project 'Made4You'.

Multidisciplinary teams working on solutions: 'Open Healthcare'

To actively catalyse the creation of open solutions, multidisciplinary teams collaborate. Each team has a 'problem owner'. This can be a patient, a health care professional or a care entrepreneur. The central issue is always a problem or need from a patient or healthcare professional. Along with young designers, makers and health professionals the teams design prototypes to solve the problem at stake.