Liesbeth van Heel

Background

About Liesbeth van Heel

After years of gathering experience as an university hospital real estate professional/hospital planner, my focus shifted to the coordinating effort to align the various strategic programs within Erasmus MC toward a safe transition to the new hospital building, with fitting work processes, logistics and IT-support. This transition took place in May 2018. My special attention has been patient's needs and creating a "healing environment", using (inter)nationally acquired evidence and experience based design knowledge. As the project- and program secretary and member of the project's management team, I took responsibility for decision making processes, stakeholder engagement, quality assurance and PR for the project. These elements, and the success of balancing of 'bricks','bytes' and 'behavior' in this mega-construction project are now the subject of my PhD research. I am an acknowledged 'knowledge sharer' on Erasmus MC's hospital redevelopment journey and it's lessons learned. As a researcher I collaborate within the scientific Program Evaluation of our New Erasmus MC (PE-ONE), which also focusses on infection prevention and patient & staff experience with 100% single room accommodation in the inpatient wards. I am a guest researcher both in the department of Public Health at Erasmus MC and with the chair "Design and Construction Manager" at TU Delft - Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. I serve on the Board member of European Health Property Network (EuHPN), where Erasmus MC held membership for many years. I chaired the Organizing Committee of the 5th Architecture, Research Care & Health conference "Enabling health, care and well-being through design research"(ARCH22), held in Delft and Rotterdam in August 2022. I also serve on the Executive of the Dutch Knowledge Platform for hospital real estate development. In June 2025 I received the Susan Francis Design Champion Award at European Healthcare Design conference in London for my efforts.