Casper Smeets is an innovator, entrepreneur, and climber. At the HCI CRS customer day on June 3rd, as a guest speaker, he took the audience on a journey through mountains, eye surgeries, and a flying bike that never takes to the air. A story about what happens when you dare to think big and start small.
He opens with a photo from space, taken by an astronaut from the Artemis II mission. That photo is his starting point for reflecting on direction and the way we want to go. He then shows what happens on Earth when you ask that question about health.
The world is changing, but not for the better of our health.
Every day, a city the size of Paris grows somewhere in the world, but those buildings are not built with human health in mind. We have lost 46 percent of all trees over the past ten thousand years. And somewhere around 2020, man-made materials—concrete, asphalt, and other substances—weighed more than all the natural biomass on Earth combined for the first time. The conclusion Casper draws from this is that we are living increasingly unnaturally, and that has consequences for our health.
Innovation that already works
To demonstrate what is already possible in healthcare, Casper shares two examples from his time as Program Director at the Rockstar Digital Health Accelerator, a program where he guides the best healthcare startups to their next phase every year.
A team from Belarus is building a database of 250.000 images of the back of the eye. An AI model then analyzes those images within a minute with 94,5 percent accuracy. The second example begins with a doctor who sees something in his own practice that bothers him.
Oscar Paling notices that patients with simple eye complaints sometimes wait months for an ophthalmologist, even though an optometrist can also do that work. He is building a digital platform where optometrists perform the treatment and an ophthalmologist monitors remotely if necessary. The treatment becomes 32 percent cheaper, is 4,5 times faster, and three-quarters of the patients are helped immediately.
Both examples he shares show how much potential there is to really do things better if you use data and technology smartly.
The flying bike that never flies
Innovating in healthcare is a challenge, and Casper knows that from personal experience. As a student, he is part of Team Icarus, a team with the ambition to break four world records for human-powered aircraft and build a flying bicycle. To secure funding, they aim to raise two million in a single step. They do not succeed. The energy partner pulls out because the risk is too great.
His technician Marcel had suggested raising a hundred thousand first, validating the design, and then seeking more money. Casper and his fellow student wanted the big money right away. Marcel was right.
The lesson he takes away is: start small. That single lesson later proves to make the difference in healthcare as well, and he applies it later as program director at a hospital where all collaborations with startups fail in the first year. Together with the hospital, he analyzes what is going wrong.
The solution is a small team of people from IT, procurement, and legal affairs that helps startups move through the internal hoops. Decisions are made within 48 hours, and they start in one department, the gastroenterology and hepatology department, where the enthusiasts are and the energy is. Only when that works do they build further.
A "no" makes your plan better.
In addition to the examples, Casper also shares something about the setbacks he has experienced. He explains that over the past six months, he has heard "no" seven or eight times regarding his plans from executives, buyers, and stakeholders. Each time, this forces him to rethink. And each time, his plan gets a little better.
He advises everyone to view a "no" as an opportunity to strengthen the plan. His Russian climbing guide phrased it differently. If you want to climb that summit, you go slowly but surely.
In addition to a good care system, a health system is also needed.
Towards the end of his presentation, Casper shows why all this is necessary. We are living longer than ever; life expectancy rose from 81 to 82 years between 2010 and 2023. But we are not living healthier lives. The number of healthy years of life decreased by three years, and since 2011, there are 3 million more people with chronic diseases. And people with low education and low income live, on average, up to 20 years shorter than people with high education and high income.
His conclusion is that in addition to a good care system, we also need a health system. A system that works on health before people get sick.