Anesthesiologist Jeroen Hermanides has been appointed Professor of Anesthesia and value-based health care at Radboud university medical center and Radboud University. His research focuses on how perioperative care can be made more effective, sustainable, and efficient. Central to his work is the question whether innovations genuinely add value for patients, healthcare professionals, and the healthcare system as a whole.
As an anesthesiologist, Jeroen Hermanides has spent countless hours in the operating theatre, where he observed the continuous introduction of new technologies, medication and medical devices, often accompanied by promises of improved quality and efficiency of care. However, do these innovations truly deliver meaningful value? This question has become the common thread throughout his research career.
‘There is a Monty Python sketch in which the operating theatre becomes so crowded with equipment that the staff can no longer find the patient. I always found that remarkably illustrative.’ These clinical experiences motivated his research into the effectiveness and broader impact of technological innovation in healthcare.
In his work, Hermanides looks beyond the immediate benefits for patients and healthcare professionals. He argues that innovations should also be evaluated in terms of their impact on the healthcare system as a whole. ‘The more equipment that is introduced, the more healthcare professionals are required and the longer procedures often take. A patient may survive because of interventions such as extracorporeal life support initiated in a helicopter followed by admission to the intensive care unit. However, the same staff, time, and resources are then unavailable for other patients. As a result, waiting lists may increase, leading to deterioration in the health of those who have to wait.’
Recent international research has shown that robotic-assisted knee replacement surgery offers no clinical advantage over conventional surgery. Outcomes in terms of pain, functional recovery, quality of life, and safety were comparable, while robotic procedures took longer, incurred higher costs, and were not cost-effective. In this context, robotic assistance provided no demonstrable benefit for patients. ‘This illustrates that successful technological innovation does not automatically translate into better healthcare at the system level’, Hermanides explains.
Scarcity in healthcare
It is precisely this broader perspective, which Hermanides refers to as the system-level impact of technological innovation, that lies at the heart of his chair in Anesthesiology and Value-Based Healthcare. In the coming years, he aims to develop a methodology for quantifying this system-level impact. ‘Today, we frequently assess cost-effectiveness and sustainability, but we rarely consider the consequences for the healthcare system as a whole. Healthcare is increasingly confronted with scarcity of personnel and resources, and our decisions must reflect that reality.’
Diabetes care in the perioperative setting
A second major line of research concerns perioperative metabolism, specifically the ways in which patients’ metabolic processes change before, during, and after surgery. He focuses particularly on individuals with diabetes, building on his doctoral research into blood glucose regulation in this patient population. Here, too, Hermanides maintains that not everything that is technologically possible necessarily represents the best course of action. ‘The outcome of many scientific studies is the addition of something to healthcare: a new medication, a new device, or a new treatment. We are much less effective at discontinuing interventions. Yet this is exactly what we should do when evidence demonstrates that something does not add sufficient value.’
Career
Jeroen Hermanides studied Medicine at the University of Amsterdam, after which he trained as an anesthesiologist. Supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship, he conducted research at the University of Cambridge. In 2010, he obtained his PhD with a dissertation entitled Measure for Measure: Consequences, Detection and Treatment of Hyperglycemia. For this work, he received the award for Best Doctoral Thesis from the Dutch Society of Anesthesiology (NVA). In 2017, he joined the medical staff of Amsterdam UMC, and in 2023 he was appointed Professor of Anesthesia. Within the NVA, he serves as a member of the Knowledge Agenda Committee. In 2026, he moved to Radboud university medical center, where he will assume his position as Professor-Research group leader on 1 September for a five-year term.
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