The main objective of this project was to educate a new type of physiotherapists that become competent in both clinical reasoning in prevention, vitality and rehabilitation in primary care and competencies in medical engineering, ICT and technology. Secondary objective was to enhance knowledge and expertise in these new type of physiotherapists on Entrepeneurship taking demands of customers, health technology companies as well as the market into account. Third objective was to bring health technology and physiotherapists together and create an international platform where health technology companies and physiotherapists can meet and join forces to identify need and create new health technology solutions
The use of technology in medical sectors has steadily increased over the last years. Especially secondary and tertiary care have been heavily influenced by the emergence of new medical technologies in the form of high tech care and advanced diagnostics. Nevertheless, the domains of prevention and rehabilitation in the primary care setting have not seen the same development when it comes to the use of technology. This is the result of a gap in communication between engineers and physiotherapists. They do not understand each other, due to lack of relevant education that combines the knowledge and use of health technology (medical engineering) with clinical reasoning regarding prevention, vitality and rehabilitation. By creating an educational programme that combines competencies in both physiotherapy as well as medical engineering, future physiotherapists get familiar with the incorporation of technologies in prevention and rehabilitation. In turn, this leads to the increased use of technology in prevention and rehabilitation. The only existing educational program combining medical engineering and physiotherapy, in the USA, demonstrates a wonderful spin-off. Such a program is lacking in Europe.