Specialization
Focus of research
After graduation from Radboud University in Nijmegen in 1999, I started working as a research-psychologist in the field of addiction and mental health. In 2010 I moved to the field of palliative care and in 2015 I defended my PhD thesis at the VUmc on evaluation of case managers in palliative care. Currenlty I work at Amsterdam UMC as Coordinator of the Expertise Center for Palliative Care and as a postdoctoral researcher on several projects, focussing on primary palliative care.
I am a member of the section Quality and Organization of Care (QOC) at the Department of Public and Occupational Health. QOC is a multidisciplinary section that aims to improve the quality and organization of public, curative, and palliative health care for citizens, patients and health care professionals, organizations and health care systems by performing research and translating scientific knowledge into practice, policy and education. Within this section my research falls with the research group Public Health at the End of Life. This research group aims to contribute to quality of life and quality of dying of people with a life-threatening illness and to also contribute to the wellbeing of their relatives. First and foremost by studies on the quality and organization of care at the end of life, in all health care settings and among all stakeholders. Important subthemes are advance care planning, palliative care, family care, nursing care and decision-making at the end-of-life.