Director of Research, Department of Integrated Care, University Medical Hospital Maastricht and Associate Professor, Department of Health Care and Nursing Science, Maastricht University and Professor Chronic Care at Tilburg University

Bert Vrijhoef is professor Chronic Care at the scientific centre for care and welfare (TRANZO), Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He is also scientific director at the Department of Integrated Care, Maastricht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands. In addition, he is leading the research program Redesigning Health Care at the Maastricht Care and Public Health Research Institute (Caphrhi), and is a board member of the International Disease Management Association (IDMA). In 2007, he was awarded Leading Researcher in Faculty of Health Sciences, and he has previously received awards from the Federation of Patients and Consumer Organizations in the Netherlands and the Dutch National Organization for Health Research and Development.

From August 2008 to September 2009 he was working at the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation, Group Health, in Seattle (US), as the first Dutch Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow (‘08–‘09) in Health Care Policy and Practice. IN this role, he conducted an international study regarding fragmentation, coordination and integration of chronic care. He is the principal investigator of several national and international studies including the Study on European Nurses in Diabetes (SEND). Bert also participated in the EU research project DISMEVAL about the development and validation of disease management evaluation methods.

Bert is editor of the journal European Diabetes Nursing, reviewer of international scientific journals, (co-)author of papers in journals like the British Medical Journal, Diabetic Medicine, Journal of Advanced Nursing, Journal of Telemedicine and Telemonitoring, and Health Expectations, and acts as policy advisor to the Ministry of Health in several countries. He holds a MSc in Health Policy & Management from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and a PhD in Medical Sociology from the Maastricht University.