Prof. Dr. Nico van Meeteren 1-2-3

Biography:

Prof. Dr. Nico van Meeteren is Executive Director of the Bureau of the Top Sector Life Sciences & Health (LSH) in The Hague. LSH, which also operates under the name Health~Holland, coordinates the execution of the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda of the Societal Challenge Health and Care of the Cabinet Rutte III and IV and Schoof.

In addition, he is Professor of Perioperative Health at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and chair of the Netherlands National Committee for the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes (NCad), in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Summary of presentation

From the Netherlands to the World: An Interdisciplinary, Mission-Driven Case Study Transforming Perioperative Health and Care

Nico van Meeteren^{1, 2 and 3}, mede namens Marjolein Haveman ⁴, Geert van der Sluis⁵ en Gertrude Nieuwenhuijs-Moeke⁴

1. Department of Anaesthesiology and Department of Cardiothoragic surgery, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; 2. Top Sector Life Sciences and Health (Health~Holland), The Hague, the Netherlands; 3. Chair, Netherlands National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (NCad), The Hague, the Netherlands
2. Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
3. Department of Health Strategy and Innovation, Nij Smellinghe Hospital Drachten, Drachten, The Netherlands.

This presentation advances a mission-led approach to transforming perioperative health and care, anchored in a Dutch case that weaves together public–private collaboration, clinical innovation, and societal value creation. Building on Mariana Mazzucato’s mission-oriented innovation principles, the initiative tackles system-level challenges by tying health outcomes to the broader aims of functional health, social participation, and sustainable development. Treating care as a continuous pathway—from patients’ homes to hospital settings and back—it foregrounds P4 strategies: personalized, predictive, preventive, and participatory. Twelve mutually reinforcing innovation domains provide the scaffolding for change, spanning technological progress and professional education through inclusive learning ecosystems and regionally organized health networks. By embedding research and innovation within routine clinical practice, the model enables real-world evidence generation, continuous learning, and adaptive system change. Accordingly, the paper offers both a practical blueprint for improving perioperative outcomes—particularly for high-risk surgical populations—and a scalable route to wider health-system reform grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration, robust data infrastructures, and mission-oriented governance.