UTFacultiesBMSDept TPSHTSRResearchHealth Preference Research

Health Preference Research

Janine van Til; Assistant Professor

We investigate patient, and other stakeholders preferences for the outcome and delivery of health care, and develop innovative methods to do so

Janine van Til; Assistant Professor

What we do

Our goal is to optimize the value of health care innovation to its most important users, the patient and his/her family, the clinician, nurses and other health care professionals that work with the technology, but also from Dutch citizens. We elicit values and preferences from the user population using innovative research methods, such as discrete choice experiments, best-worst scaling and other value trade-off methods. We aim to support actual decision making in practice, on the clinical, organisational and societal level, using multi-criteria decision analysis. Moreover, we use innovative methods to estimate preference heterogeneity and predict individual preferences, to support more personalized health care decision making. 

key Projects

  • Transferability of patient preference information for the medical product cycle

    The value of patient preference studies to support decision making has been recognized by regulators and Health Technology Assessment bodies. However, patient preferences studies are resource consuming, and it is not feasible to perform a de novo preference study for every new drug or drug device combination. So far, only two attempts have been made to combine preferences elicited from existing studies using meta-regression approaches. The objective of this project is to show when and how patient preference information collected within one context (country, indication or setting), can be transferred to a different context.

  • To capitalize on the value of EQ-5D to support clinical decision making

    To support value-based healthcare, many hospitals are developing dashboards to collect patient-reported outcomes (PROMs), with future aspirations of using the results to support decision-making at both the hospital and individual patient levels.

    The objective of the current project is to demonstrate the value of the EQ-5D in supporting clinical decision-making at the individual level, using data from smaller-scale databases that can be realistically collected within a short timeframe and within a healthcare organization. The project aims to understand current use of PROM dashboards, best practices in design of PROM dashboards and the value of prediction modeling to predict future health of patients.

  • Citizen Science in Health Care Research

    There is a strong drive to include citizens in research projects, promoted by both patient organizations and funders. However, researchers often struggle with how to involve citizens and individuals with various diseases in their research.

    Within the TOPFIT Citizenlab project we apply citizen science methodology to develop and evaluate healthcare technologies and services to improve health and well-being. The active involvement of citizens in this research process helps to design solutions that well fit in their lives and situations. The project focuses both on understanding the best use of citizen science methodologies and on the development and evaluation of healthcare technology and services.

Technology Developer, Health Care Organisation, Med Tech Company?
Contact us!
Want to know how your patients or other users evaluate your innovation, and how focusing on a technologies most important attributes can increase its value? 

Featured publications

van Til JA, Pearce A, Ozdemir S, Hollin IL, Peay HL, Wu AW, Ostermann J, Deal K, Craig BM. Role Preferences in Medical Decision Making: Relevance and Implications for Health Preference Research. Patient. 2024 Jan;17(1):3-12. doi: 10.1007/s40271-023-00649-4. Epub 2023 Oct 24. PMID: 37874464; PMCID: PMC10769916.

Veldwijk J, Smith IP, Oliveri S, Petrocchi S, Smith MY, Lanzoni L, Janssens R, Huys I, de Wit GA, Groothuis-Oudshoorn CGM. Comparing Discrete Choice Experiment with Swing Weighting to Estimate Attribute Relative Importance: A Case Study in Lung Cancer Patient Preferences. Med Decis Making. 2024 Feb;44(2):203-216. doi: 10.1177/0272989X231222421. Epub 2024 Jan 4. PMID: 38178591; PMCID: PMC10865764.

Wolkorte R, Heesink L, Kip MMA, Koffijberg H, Tabak M, Grünloh C. Monitoring of rheumatoid arthritis: a patient survey on disease insight and possible added value of an innovative inflammation monitoring device. Rheumatol Int. 2022 Sep;42(9):1565-1572. doi: 10.1007/s00296-021-05026-8. Epub 2021 Oct 21. PMID: 34676427; PMCID: PMC8530199.

Contact persons

dr. J.A. van Til (Janine)
Associate Professor
dr. C.G.M. Oudshoorn (Karin)
Associate Professor