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Daniel Steenstra is clinically trained, spent eleven years as a professional designer at Carrozzeria Michelotti and Jaguar Cars, and taught design thinking at the University of Warwick for twenty-five years. His first book, Design Thinking for Healthcare (Productivity Press), carries a foreword by Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham.

Daniel Steenstra combines three domains that rarely meet in one person: nine years of clinical training at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; eleven years as a professional designer at Carrozzeria Michelotti in Turin and Jaguar Cars in Coventry, where he project managed the interior design of the Jaguar XK8; and two decades at the intersection of healthcare and innovation, including three years leading the Innovations Factory at Heartlands Hospital Birmingham.

He was the Royal Academy of Engineering's first Visiting Professor in Medical Innovation, hosted at Cranfield University, and taught design thinking to engineers at the University of Warwick for twenty-five years. As Chief Scientist of a US health-AI start-up, he led the system architecture of AI for healthcare equity in underserved populations.

His first book, Design Thinking for Healthcare (Productivity Press, with a foreword by Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham), equips clinicians with the design methods and tools to take on healthcare transformation. He is based in the Netherlands.

Daniel Steenstra combines three domains that rarely meet in one person: nine years of clinical training at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; eleven years as a professional designer at Carrozzeria Michelotti in Turin and Jaguar Cars in Coventry, where he designed and project managed the interior design of the Jaguar XK8; and two decades at the intersection of healthcare and innovation, including three years embedded in an NHS Trust leading the Innovations Factory at Heartlands Hospital Birmingham. He studied the Toyota Production System as Ford's representative.

He was the Royal Academy of Engineering's first Visiting Professor in Medical Innovation, hosted at Cranfield University, and taught design thinking to engineers at the University of Warwick for twenty-five years. As Chief Scientist of a US health-AI start-up, he led the system architecture of AI for healthcare equity in underserved populations. His work spans clinical trials, AI implementation, policy design, and organisational change.

Design Thinking for Healthcare: A Practical Guide to Healthcare Transformation (Productivity Press / Taylor & Francis) is his first book, with a foreword by Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham. It argues that healthcare has been relentlessly improved but rarely designed — and that the capability the design work needs is already in the building: clinicians practise the design process daily through clinical reasoning. This is not a book of workshops, sticky notes and empathy maps: it is a framework and a field manual for healthcare executives, clinical directors, policymakers, and innovation leaders. Part IV diagnoses why transformation initiatives collapse — the structural traps, political dynamics and institutional resistance that defeat even well-designed programmes. Part V equips the reader with the design methods and tools, 90-day roadmaps and a customised implementation field manual to begin immediately.

Daniel is based in the Netherlands. He writes the Design Thinking for Healthcare series at danieliao.substack.com.