The mission of my Cardiac Surgery Innovations Lab is to improve treatment outcomes for individual patients after cardio-thoracic surgery. Most researchers focus on improvements for generic groups on patients, yet we know that the average treatment does not work for the average patient.
I work towards my mission acknowledging two key elements of personalised patient care:
Healthcare professionals need to be trained before they practice in patient care
Personalised treatments should consider patient characteristics and be as minimally invasive as possible
The research focuses on these two main areas. First, medical simulation-based training is investigated to ensure proficiency before practicing on patients. Students must be trained in e.g. surgical skills before they enter the hospital for clinical rotations. Expert professionals learning new surgical techniques or improve non-technical skills as leadership and situational awareness must practice these innovations in a simulated environment. Simulators are often not available, or do not fulfil training requirements. The scope of my lab is therefore to both develop surgical simulators based on user needs, train professionals (see figure) and evaluate these simulators with professionals. My most complex simulations are in-situ simulations where professionals are trained to treat an individual patient with personalised care.
Left panel: Dr. Frank R. Halfwerk assessing Technical Medicine students in surgical skills at TechMed Simulation Centre (U-Today, 2022). Right panel: A mobilisation poster as an effective low-tech innovation to stimulate mobilisation after heart surgery (JCTS, 2023)
Next, in collaboration with Medisch Spectrum Twente, personalised Enhanced Recovery after Cardio-Thoracic Surgery is stimulated. Here, cardiac (p)rehabilitation is explored, emphasizing improving outcomes through early mobilisation. Surgical innovations include preoperative patient risk models, clinical evaluation of new medical therapies to ensure effectiveness and safety of new technologies in surgical practice.
Fields of interest
Cardio-Thoracic Surgery
Simulation-based training
Enhanced Recovery after Cardiac Surgery (ERAS Cardiac)
Reconstructive Medicine
Biomaterials
Quality and Safety in Health Care
Always looking for collaboration projects (public/private). See also: mst.nl/thoraxcentrum
Frank Halfwerk (1989) obtained his Bachelor (2010) and Master of Science (2014) degree in Technical Medicine, with a specialisation in Reconstructive Medicine at the University of Twente. He also finished a Master in Health Sciences with a specialisation in Health Services and Management in 2014 at the same university. He started as a Technical Physician and external Doctoral Candidate in October 2014 in cardio-thoracic surgery at Thorax Centrum Twente (Medisch Spectrum Twente) and in the department of Biomechanical Engineering in the ‘Technology in Cardiac Surgery’ group of prof. Grandjean.
From 2020 - 2026, he worked as Assistant Professor in the Engineering Organ Support Technologies group from prof. Jutta Arens where he is principle investigator of the Cardiac Surgery Innovations Lab and continues as Associate Professor as of 2026.
His focus is both on technical and applied innovations in cardio-thoracic surgery. This includes personalised rehabilitation after cardiac surgery with accelerometers and artificial intelligence, simulation-based surgical training, 3D-planning, and surgical technology assessment.
He was awarded the Prof. Snellen Award (2014) from the Dutch Society for Cardiology / Dutch Society for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, and the Prof. Schuijer Campus Culture Prize (2012) for 'combining excellent cultural performance with good study results'. His research was nominated for the prof. David Winter Young Investigator Award from the International Society of Biomechanics (2015).
He is co-applicant and project manager of awarded research projects and supervised over 70 bachelor- and master students.
Other interests include dancing in national and international ballroom competitions, playing chess, organising, politics, health care policy.
As a Technical Physician in Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, I am involved in courses and modules of Technical Medicine, Health Sciences and Biomedial Engineering. Together with Erik Groot Jebbink, we completely revised the applied Surgical Skills course in 2015 in the Master phase of Technical Medicine. Based on our own experience in different surgical specialities and our goal to give students a holistic approach on the surgical route, we now provide applied surgical skills in a simulation-based context.
Next, I am daily supervisor of interns in Technical Medicine at the Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Thorax Centrum Twente, Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital.
Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.
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