Sebastiaan Meijer

In healthcare of the future, the patient will be more of the primary focus, which requires coordination by all of the care providers. Logistics principles can then be of assistance if they are developed for the complex systems that make up healthcare.
Can we develop control rooms that support continuous health care systems and integrate medical, social and practical health and medical care? What should be done with readings the patient takes him or herself using sensors in smartphones and mobile units? This can dramatically improve home health care, especially for the elderly and chronically ill, and can become a reality in “smart” cities.
Sebastian Meijer’s research team primarily uses gaming simulation and other interactive methods to develop the use of logistic methods in the healthcare sector. An important issue in this area of research is getting the healthcare resources and expensive equipment to be used efficiently. This requires the structuring of production chains that optimally utilise people and machinery. This is already being done successfully at specialised hospitals, but is more difficult in situations where many different kinds of health care is provided. Integrated healthcare systems for metropolitan regions also demand coordination between a number of different institutions and players to achieve a resource-efficient through-put of patients.