Potential Supervisor: Nazokatkhon Akhmadjonova
Level: Master thesis
Strategic Orientation: Digital Health · Sustainability · Systems Thinking

Background

Digital medical devices increasingly shape healthcare delivery, yet their lifecycle management remains largely linear. Single-use designs, limited transparency, and strict regulatory requirements constrain reuse, reprocessing, and recycling strategies, particularly in highly regulated healthcare environments. At the same time, digital traceability solutions and policy initiatives aimed at circularity are gaining momentum, raising questions about their system-wide effects.

Understanding circularity in digital health requires moving beyond isolated technological or regulatory perspectives. Instead, it calls for a systems-oriented approach that captures feedback effects, delays, and interdependencies between regulatory frameworks, economic incentives, organizational behavior, and material flows. System dynamics modeling offers a suitable methodological lens to analyze these complex interactions and to explore how circular strategies evolve over time under different system configurations.

This thesis contributes to ongoing work in Circular Digital Health by applying system dynamics modeling to analyze the conditions under which circular strategies for digital medical devices may emerge, stabilize, or fail.

Research Directions

Possible research directions include:

• Modeling feedback relationships between regulation, traceability, economic incentives, and material flows in digital medical device systems
• Exploring how different policy or system configurations influence reuse, reprocessing, and recycling dynamics over time
• Identifying leverage points and unintended consequences in circular digital health strategies through scenario-based simulation

The thesis focuses on conceptual and simulation-based analysis rather than technical system implementation.

Methodological Orientation

The project emphasizes conceptual modeling and simulation-based analysis, potentially including:

• System dynamics model development
• Scenario-based simulation and sensitivity analysis
• Theory-informed model design grounded in sustainability and information systems research

The scope and complexity can be adjusted depending on the student’s background and methodological experience.

Requirements and Administration (optional)

Students should have an interest in systems thinking, sustainability, and digital health. Basic familiarity with modeling concepts or a willingness to learn system dynamics tools is beneficial. The topic allows flexibility in scope and complexity depending on the student’s background.

References

Fang, Y., Lim, K. H., Qian, Y., & Feng, B. (2018). System Dynamics Modeling for Information Systems Research: Theory Development and Practical Application. MIS Quarterly, 42(4), 1303–1330, A1–A5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26635082

Georgantzas, N. C. (2008). Information systems research with system dynamics. System Dynamics Review, 24(3), 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1002/sdr.412

Zhang, A., & Seuring, S. (2024). Digital product passport for sustainable and circular supply chain management: A structured review of use cases. International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications. https://doi.org/10.1080/13675567.2024.2374256