van der Vaart

Prof Huub van der Vaart is member of staff at the UMCU since 1996. He finished his thesis on “pelvic floor dysfunction quality of life in women” in 2001, and is professor in urogynaecology since February 2012. This work was the foundation for the national pelvic floor questionnaire as one of the first examples of measuring patient-related outcome and quality of life. He is an active member of the Dutch working party on pelvic floor of which he was chairman between 2004-2010. During this period the urogynaecology was acknowledged as subspecialty in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is actively involved in the development of national guidelines on incontinence. He was trained at the Harvard Business school in the program “managing health care delivery”. Alongside his research activities, which have been patient outcome centered, his interest focusses on new ways to deliver health care to women. From this perspective (creating value) he started a specialized outpatient urogynaecology clinic based on a new business model (ZBC) in 2002. At this stage the research focus is expending form patient-centered studies to basic science and translational medicine. There is a collaboration with several international (Cleveland, Leuven, München. Mississippi) and national (AMC, Radboud) partners.