“As medical physicist I focus on improving the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of healthcare – by developing and implementing new technology for diagnosis and treatment of patients.”

Carola van Pul is a Professor in Clinical Physics at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her fields of expertise concerns general clinical physics - with a particular specialization in medical technology used for mother-and-child care.  

Next to her clinical tasks as clinical physicist in MMC, Carola is an active researcher. Focus of her research is currently on patient monitoring for (neonatal) intensive care and complex patient monitoring and medical alarm systems using ICT networks. New monitoring techniques are developed for improving diagnosis but also data mining approaches are investigated to reduce the high number of alarms in the intensive care environment (neonatal and adult ICU) in order to increase patient safety and reduce alarm fatigue of the staff.  

In this vulnerable population of preterm infants at the NICU, improving monitoring of maturation of neonates is important to predict patient outcome. Carola is also involved in the development of serious gaming and the development of a simulation model for diabetes.

Carola van Pul obtained MSc in Applied Physics from Delft University of Technology, followed by her PhD on the subject on Diffusion Tensor Imaging in neonates at TU/e. With this technique, it became possible to visualize white matter fiber structures in vivo in the neonatal brain. After that, Carola did her training in medical physics (a medical profession in the Netherlands) at the Maxima Medical Center, Eindhoven, where she has been a clinical physicist since 2006. In 2008, she was involved as a researcher at the University Medical Center Utrecht in a project on Diffusion Tensor Imaging (project) for neonatal brain imaging.

In her profession as clinical physicist in a hospital, Carola is involved in the introduction of innovative technology in clinical practice, and in medical equipment procurement processes and safe introduction and application of this equipment, e.g. in the Women-Mother and Child center, but also for radiological applications. She has experience with risk analysis for complex medical technology, such as medical alarm systems at in a (neonatal and adult) ICU setting. 

Carola's field of research has specialized over the last years in sensors and patient monitoring and alarm systems for intensive care setting with a special focus on neonatal applications. She is actively participating in the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC), a research collaboration between The Catharina Hospital (CH), the Maxima Medical Center (MMC), Kempenhaeghe Epilepsy and Sleep Center (KH), Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and Royal Philips Eindhoven (RPE) in the domains cardiovascular care, perinatal care and sleep care. Carola regularly contributes to leading journals such as IEEE J Biomed Health Inform, Pediatric Research, Early Human Development.