prof. dr. Gert Jan van der Wilt

About Gert Jan van der Wilt

The key research interest of Gert Jan van der Wilt is the integrated evaluation of healthcare technology. This means an evaluation where normative and empirical inquiry are fully integrated. To this end, he has developed and used interactive approaches to Healthcare Technology Assessment (HTA), involving all stakeholders. Interpretative frames of stakeholdes are reconstructed through interviews, revealing how background theories and normative preferences jointly determine their problem definition and judgment of various solutions to health problems. The method is explicitly transformative, with a focus on social learning and development of novel solutions to health problems. It focuses not only on validity of evidence, but also on its relevance, as a function of values. As compared to conventional models of evaluation, it is more concerned with the issue of justification.

Gert Jan van der Wilt is a neuroscientist by training. After his PhD in neural network analysis at VU University he worked as a postdoc at the Institute of Ethics of VU University, on normative assumptions underlying assessments of healthcare technologies. He was visting scholar at the Hastings Center (NY), before assuming his research activities at Radboud University Medical Centre. Apart from his affioliation at RUMC he is professor of interactive Health Technology Assessment at the Athena Institute of VU University, member of the National Appraisal Committee of the Health Insurance Board, member of the Health Council (committee of HTA, committee of Population Health Research), and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Vienna.