Good news at the start of 2026! A new EWUU collaboration has been granted by ZonMW. Mid-2026, nine new projects will start within the framework programme Appropriate Care. One of the projects, called MECH-I, was submitted after collaboration between several EWUU partners and the i4CS team. The project was submitted to the funding call “Research Methodology for Appropriate Care – Ecological Sustainability” and focusses on the development of methodologies related to the ecological sustainability of existing healthcare.
MECH-I: Methods for Comparative Research on the Environmental Impact of Healthcare Interventions
To make healthcare future-proof, healthcare decisions should consider not only effectiveness and costs, but also ecological sustainability. The MECH-I project contributes to this goal by developing and applying practical decision-support tools to support such considerations by:
- combining different environmental impact metrics in order to compare healthcare interventions, and
- weighing environmental impact against, for example, patient outcomes and costs.
The methods will then be applied, tested, and refined. Together with stakeholders, a practical user guide will be developed for applying these methods, enabling healthcare decisions to take ecological sustainability into account alongside effectiveness and costs.
Team
Principle Investigator:
- UMC Utrecht: Ewoud Schuit
This project is carried out in collaboration with:
- Utrecht University: Laura Piscicelli
- UMC Utrecht: Miriam van der Meulen, Pauline Heus, Florijn Dekkers (i4CS), Rieke van der Graaf
- Zorginstituut Nederland: Marieke Biegstraaten, Hedi Schelleman
- DSW Zorgverzekeraar: Arjan de Kwant
- Zorgevaluatie en Gepast Gebruik: Anneke Kwee
And with involvement from:
- Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport: Ype van Strien
- Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu: Susanne Waaijers – van der Loop
- Federatie Medisch Specialisten: Charlotte Michels