Smart software for better quality in healthcare.New year, new opportunities! Every year, various research agencies publish lists of trends we can expect that year. It offers opportunities to strengthen quality and risk management in your healthcare organisation and take important steps in this regard. 2025 promises to be a year of growing focus on technological innovation (AI in healthcare), new cybersecurity challenges and sustainability. In this article, we take you through five trends that we think will be of interest to your healthcare organisation in the Netherlands.
In the world of risk and quality management, change is the only constant. As you may have already read, ISO 9001:2015, the standard for quality management worldwide, is being revised. Although the revised standard was actually supposed to be published at the end of 2025, it is likely to be delayed until the end of 2026. Now you might be thinking: so why is this trend already listed? Because we think you can take steps in this as a healthcare organisation right now.
The reason for the review are two key themes: sustainability and digitalisation. You read more and more about sustainability these days. It seems like every company is talking about it. But sustainability is more than a trendy word – it’s about making smart choices that are good for the planet as well as your organisation. The revision of the ISO 9001 quality standard will encourage the healthcare sector to make sustainability part of its operations.
Sustainability has been a regular feature recurring in research firm trends for years. What is now fundamentally different is that sustainability will no longer be an optional part of business operations; it will become an essential pillar. So sustainability returns in the revised standard, but ISO 9001 remains a standard that focuses on quality management. That means you need to integrate sustainability into your quality management system and processes.
The revision of the ISO:9001 quality standard teaches us that this is not just another update, but a major movement towards a more sustainable, digitised approach to quality management in healthcare. So don’t see this as a challenge, but as an opportunity to fine-tune your quality management system now.
In recent years, great strides have already been made in terms of AI in the Dutch healthcare sector, but according to several sources, including SAS, AI will go from hype to reality in 2025. More and more healthcare organisations will start using AI and look for ways to apply AI insights. Dutch hospitals are already embracing various AI applications, for example to develop personalised treatment plans, make automatic diagnoses, improve emergency care and detect certain types of cancer.
Fair is fair: in 2022, not everyone was yet engaged in AI at all, and tools like ChatGPT were not yet available to the general public. Because AI developments are moving so fast, expectations are that big steps will be taken again in 2025, on a large and smaller scale. Dutch politicians also see a major role for AI in healthcare, for instance to reduce the administrative burden. This year is dominated by the integration of healthcare systems, technological modernisation and a more prominent role for patients and clients.
That care transformation is badly needed, ICT&health also writes. According to them, AI can make a big impact in healthcare in three domains where there is too little capacity, money and expertise in individual agencies and where collaborations can make a big difference. These are Nursing, Care Homes and Home Care (VVT), primary care and the public health domain. When many parties put their heads together to achieve the same goal of improving care with AI, suddenly much more becomes possible.
Elderly care is pre-eminently a care domain where there is a need for less administration and smarter organisation. To boost AI innovations, the AI Compass was therefore drawn up by the Dutch AI Coalition and Vilans, commissioned by the Ministry of Health. In this sector, there are great examples of how AI can support, for example, guiding and monitoring frail elderly people by analysing images with AI.
The Dutch AI coalition wants the VVT to receive maximum support so that the whole sector can learn from success stories and individual organisations do not have to set up time-consuming pilots on their own. This way of working could then be set up in a similar way in zero and primary care. Unfortunately, not much funding is currently available for the public health domain, while there is still much to be gained here.
So while there are a lot of great AI innovations expected in 2025, there is also a dark side to AI. Google experts warn (in Google Cloud’s recently published Cybersecurity Forecast 2025 report) of major threats and shifts in cybercrime. New methods based on AI play a major role in this. The report states, ‘AI and large language models (LLMs) will continue to help develop and scale up phishing, text messaging and other social engineering attacks.’
Indeed, AI is improving the effectiveness of existing phishing methods. For example, it is becoming increasingly difficult to spot deepfake attacks, which are used for identity theft, among other things. Deepfake technology allows cybercriminals to impersonate doctors, for example, and so phishing can take place through online healthcare portals.
Healthcare has been a target for Russian hacker groups since the attack on Ukraine. As global tensions rise, more attacks are expected from North Korea, China and Iran. Ransomware will therefore remain the most prominent threat this year. While hackers used to be mostly IT specialists, today we see that anyone can become a cybercriminal.
The Google report writes about this:
Ransomware, data theft, extortion and multi-faceted extortion are and will remain the most disruptive forms of cybercrime worldwide in 2025 – both because of the number of incidents and the scale of potential damage for each event.’
The consequences of such incidents are significant for the healthcare sector. It can compromise the safety of patients and clients, for example when access to EHRs/ECDs is blocked. Treatments can thus be delayed, but financial risks, such as paying ransom or fines, are also real.
Read more about ransomware and how to prevent it here.
Google also highlights in the report the growing threat of so-called ‘infostealers’ – tools specifically designed to steal passwords. The lack of multifactor authentication often plays a role in this. So be sure to set this up for your entire healthcare organisation – otherwise cybercriminals can gain access to critical infrastructure.
So it’s smart to revisit your cybersecurity in 2025. How advanced is your security really? Make regular backups, organise employee training, conduct tests, use multi-factor authentication (MFA) and perform regular risk analyses with risk management software. Besides the measures you can take yourself as an organisation, there are also new regulations, such as the NIS2, to strengthen cybersecurity in healthcare.
Read more about the NIS2 (Network and Information Security Directive) here.
There is a growing focus on involving patients in their own healthcare process, leading to better outcomes and higher satisfaction, according to NCZ. This trend will continue in 2025. As patients and clients are increasingly involved in clinical research and decision-making, care will be better tailored to them. The result? More personalised care, better continuity and coordination of care and higher job satisfaction among healthcare professionals.
Measuring patient and client satisfaction and experiences offers healthcare professionals more insight into the effectiveness of treatments. It also provides insight into the quality of care from the patient or client’s point of view.
Did you know that you can also use our questionnaire tool to retrieve relevant external information, e.g. to survey patients and clients? This way, you can easily gain insight into their personal experience, offer more targeted care and make informed decisions.
Are you curious about how our solutions can help your organisation in 2025? Our experts are happy to think along with you. Did you know that we have been the specialist in healthcare quality management software for over 25 years? Contact us today!
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