Dr van Kessel is the Hoffmann Fellow on Health System Financing and Payment Models at LSE Health and the World Economic Forum. He holds a PhD in Comparative Health Policy from Maastricht University. At the LSE, he co-founded and leads LSE Health Digital: a digital health research unit with a particular focus on the regulation, implementation, and financing of digital health and AI technologies. His work on digital health has covered:

• Factors that affect the implementation of digital therapeutics within health systems;
• Existing reimbursement and financing mechanisms for digital health technologies;
• Socio-ethical challenges surrounding digital health technologies;
• The emergence of the digital determinants of health and the digitalization of social, political, and commercial determinants;
• Potential drivers of patient engagement with their health data through digital platforms; and
• The rise of digital health as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic

In terms of research on AI technologies, his work has covered:

• The regulatory landscape for introducing AI technologies into the European Union;
• How the intellectual property legislative framework in Europe applies to AI technologies and health datasets;
• Comparing health technology assessment guidelines for evaluating digital health and AI technologies;
• The effects that different licensing options have on the uptake of AI models and how that can help inform health sector-specific practices; and
• The potential economic impact of introducing AI technologies in the healthcare sector.

In doing so, he has established collaborations with the World Health Organization, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Economic Forum, European Commission, and the private sector.

 Beyond his work in digital health and artificial intelligence, Dr van Kessel also researches value-based healthcare transformations in a digital age. His work has directly informed the work of the World Economic Forum's Global Coalition for Value in Healthcare in 2025 and beyond. His work in value-based healthcare has covered: 

• A consensus on the building blocks of value creation within value-based health systems; and
• A consensus on the key priority domains for supplying value-based healthcare in a digital age.

Dr van Kessel’s work is published in leading medical and health policy journals such as npj Digital Medicine, The Lancet Digital Health, The Lancet Regional Health - Europe, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and The BMJ. See his Google Scholar page here.