SPEAKERS

Dr Aimee Murray is a microbiologist researching the evolution and ecology of antimicrobial resistance. A particular focus is the selection and co-selection for antimicrobial resistance in the environment and environmental risk assessment of antimicrobials.

Aimee joined the European Centre for Environment in Human Health (ECEHH) to undertake her BBSRC/ AstraZeneca CASE funded PhD studies. Following the award of her PhD, Aimee secured a NERC Industrial Innovation Research Fellowship to develop the first assay which can generate data on selection for antimicrobial resistance and be used for environmental risk assessment.

Alan Fraser is Consultant Cardiologist at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, UK; Visiting Professor in Cardiovascular Imaging and Dynamics at the University of Leuven; and emeritus Professor of Cardiology at the Wales Heart Research Institute, Cardiff University. He qualified in Edinburgh, undertook postgraduate training in Scotland and Wales, and was clinical research fellow at the Thoraxcentre in Rotterdam. Within the European Society of Cardiology he has been President of the European Association of Echocardiography, and ESC Vice-President for External Affairs. Now he chairs the Committee on Regulatory Affairs and represents the European Society of Cardiology on European Commission committees concerning medical devices. His expertise is in functional imaging of the heart, and his research interests include heart valve disease, heart muscle disease, and the pathophysiology and diagnosis of heart failure.

Aleksandra Torbica is Associate Professor of the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University.

Her collaboration with SDA Bocconi began in 2002. She was first Coordinator and then Director of the Master in International Health Care Management, Economics and Policy from 2012 to 2015 (MIHMEP). She has coordinated important international research projects funded by the European Commission. Over the years, she has worked on numerous researches and training projects for several key actors of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries and for national public institutions.

Since 2017, she is the Director of Centre for Research on Health and Social Care Management (CERGAS) within Government, Health & Non Profit Division of SDA Bocconi.

The intersection between three disciplines applied to healthcare sector: policy, economics and management. She is interested in exploring different methodologies stemming from these disciplines to investigate how economic evaluation analysis can influence and shape decision-making processes at macro (policy) and micro (management) levels in different contexts. More generally, her research activities focus on economic evaluation analysis of healthcare programmes, health policy, healthcare management, health technology assessment, health economics and budget impact analysis.

Aleksandra is author of numerous publications in HTA, health economics and health services research and reviewer for many international academic journals such as Social Science and Medicine, Value in Health, Health Economics, Health Care Management Review, Pharmacoeconomics, Health Policy. She is the Principal Investigator of the European project H2020 «COMED – Pushing the boundaries of Cost and Outcome Analysis of Medical Technologies. She is an active member of the International Association of Health Economics (IHEA), the European Health Economics Association (EuheA), the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR) and a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Association of Health Economics. Since 2017 she is Co-Editor of Value in Health, one of the leading international journals in the field of health economics and health policy.

Aleksandra earned a Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Belgrado (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in Economics and Management of Public Administrations, from University of Parma, Italy. She is Associate Professor, at the Department of Social Science and Policy at Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy.

Lourenço serves as President of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Managers, Board and Executive Committee member of the European Association of Hospital Managers (EAHM), Board Member of the European Health Management Association and Honorary Fellow of the Brazilian College of Health Executives. Additionally he is an Affiliate Member of Nova SBE Health Economics and Management Knowledge Centre and Guest Lecturer on Healthcare Management Executive Training Programmes at the Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics and NOVA SBE. He works as Hospital Administrator at Coimbra University and Hospital Centre, the major hospital in Portugal with nearly 2,000 acute beds. Since 2014, he has been a consultant for the World Health Organization, providing technical assistance on health systems’ strengthening and financing. He is also Vice-Chair of the Technical Advisory Group on Tuberculosis Control for WHO-E. Lourenço has also co-authored several healthcare policy documents, book chapters, scientific papers and has presented keynote talks all over the world.

Andrew Corbett-Nolan is the chief executive of GGI and has worked in healthcare since joining the NHS in 1987. He specialises in board development work and some of the more complex governance reviews that GGI undertakes.

· He has led many of the important programmes of work undertaken by GGI, including the development of the new governance arrangements for Clinical Research Networks, the review of the Welsh Healthcare Specialist Services Commissioning, the development of the Good Governance Handbook and the development of governance review tools for NHS England.

· Andrew has held multiple executive and non-executive leadership roles in large, complex and national healthcare and regulatory organisations in the UK. He worked internationally for Humana, the USA Fortune 100 healthcare insurer and the Joint Commission International as well as academic work at the Nelson Mandela Medical School in Durban and Luis University in Rome. He was international consultant for COHSASA in Cape Town, Director of the Governance Office for the European Society for Quality in Healthcare and is currently a member of the European Healthcare Futures Forum and a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow. He has contributed to many international Forums, including with EHMA, ISQua, The Romanian Hospital Federation, NTVZ in the Netherlands and the BMJ/IHI quality and safety forum.

Dr Andrzej Ryś is a medical doctor specialised in radiology and public health, graduated from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. He founded in 1991 and ran as Director until 1997 the School of Public Health at the Jagiellonian University. Thereafter, from 1997 -1999, he served as Director of the Krakow’s City Health Department. Between 1999 -2002, he continued his career as Deputy Minister of Health in Poland where he developed a new system of emergency medical service, a reform of the education system for the health professionals and he was a member of the Polish EU accession negotiators team for the harmonisation of the Polish Health Care Law with the EU’s Acquis Communautaire.

After becoming Senior Consultant of “Health and Management Ltd” for the World Bank (WHO) and EAR in Serbia (in 2002), he founded in 2003 the “Center for Innovation, Technology Transfer and University Development” (CITTRU) at the Jagiellonian University in 2003, where he assumed the role of Director until 2006. From 2004-2005 he was also Director of Development at “Diagnostyka Ltd”.

In 2006, he became Director for Public Health and Risk Assessment at the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO), in the European Commission, and from 2011 -2014 he assumed the position of Director for Health Systems and Products in DG SANCO. Since 2014, Dr Andrzej Rys is the Director responsible for Health Systems, Medical Products and Innovation at DG SANTE, in the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium.

Anna Krohwinkel is Head of Research at the Leading Health Care Foundation, a Swedish academic think-tank working to create knowledge and promote dialogue about how health and social care can be improved. Her expert areas include a wide range of topics related to organization, governance and innovation within healthcare systems. On this she has authored and edited numerous publications and she is a regular conference speaker, lecturer and workshop facilitator. Since 2017, she is Deputy Secretary General and member of the board of Leading Health Care Foundation.

She has a background from research in public management at the Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Center for Organizational Research (Score), and Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research at Stanford University. She worked as an inquirer for public agencies such as the Swedish National Audit Office and the Swedish Agency for Development Evaluation, and has an ongoing assignment as expert evaluator of innovation project applications at Vinnova. Apart from research on the welfare sectors, she has done extensive studies of project management within international development cooperation.

Anna Sagan is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies’ Policy Briefs series. She works in the Observatory’s London hub, sharing her time between the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She is also author and editor of Observatory studies, most recently on private health insurance, Health Systems in Transition (HiT) reviews, and Health country profiles – Health Systems and Policy Monitor (HSPM) and COVID-19 Health Systems Response Monitor (HSRM) profiles and State of Health in the EU (SoHEU) profiles. Anna obtained her master’s degree in economics at the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Jagiellonian University in Poland.

Dr. Antanas Montvila is a board member of European and Lithuanian Junior doctors associations. Antanas is a resident doctor specializing in radiology at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Hospital and currently continuing his training at King’s College Hospital, London. As a board member of the European Junior Doctors Association, Antanas is mostly responsible for the coordination of working groups dedicated to promoting digital health and medical leadership training in Europe. He was also an advisor for the National E-health Board affiliated with the Department of Health of Lithuania (representing the Lithuanian Junior Doctors Association) and participated and represented European Junior Doctors in numerous Digital Health events. He is also a co-founder of the project called “Golden Minutes” (www.auksinesminutes.lt) a non-profit, uniting more than 120 medical students and doctors to volunteer for one common goal to equip more than 9000 pupils with essential CPR skills across Lithuania.

Through more than 25 years of work, Dr Antonio Duran has achieved a broad professional record as International Consultant collaborating with many international organizations. He has especially extended working relationships with the World Health Organization and the World Bank and has also worked for the European Union, and International Development Bank, the UK Department for International Development, and others.

Dr. Duran has gained particular expertise in working in and leading health system reform projects. His experience in most Eastern European and Former Soviet Union Countries has provided him with particularly deep knowledge of Transition Countries. He has also worked in Africa (South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania and Swaziland); Asia (Bahrain, China, India, Maldives and Nepal) and Latin America (Bahamas, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Panama).

Antonio Duran acts as CEO at AllDMhealth, a private consultancy company in the fields of Health Policies and Systems. He regularly collaborates and holds an honorary appointment as Technical Adviser for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies in Brussels. Dr. Duran is also visiting Lecturer at the Andalusian School of Public Health, in Granada, Spain, where he teaches Health Systems and International Health Policies, a regular lecturer on the same topics for the Management Centre in Innsbruck (until 2018), Austria, as well as a frequent speaker at national and international fora.

He has a broad range of publications on the above areas, the latest ones being books on hospitals (“Understanding hospitals in changing health systems” and “Governing public hospitals”) as well as peer-review articles.

Arthur Hayen, Ph.D., works for Dutch health insurance company Menzis as a Senior Intelligence Analyst, where he helps in designing and refining existing financial incentives for providers. Apart from his position at Menzis, he works as a senior lecturer at Leiden University Medical Center, campus the Hague. His research focuses on financial incentives in health care, for both doctors and patients. He published in a number of academic journals, among which are the American Journal of Managed Care, Social Science & Medicine, and was recently featured on the Health Affairs blog. In 2013, Arthur was awarded the Top Grade Reviewer Award for his review work for the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Axel Kaehne was born and educated in Berlin at Free University and Humboldt University and subsequently studied at Aberdeen University and the University of Wales. He settled in South Wales in 1996. In 2005 he took up a position of Research Fellow at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University and joined Edge Hill as a Senior Research Fellow in April 2013. He was appointed Reader in Health Service Research in 2016 and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Care. Axel has been appointed Visiting Professor at Department of Health and Social Management at the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio for Autumn 2019. He is currently President of EHMA, the European Health Management Association (Brussels).

Axel has designed and delivered evaluations of health improvement programmes in England and Wales and is also member of the Children’s Nursing Research Unit at Alder Hey, the Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Axel has an interest in programme evaluations, evaluation methodologies and quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Leading on from his work in intellectual disabilities, he has developed a research focus on multiagency work, service integration and partnerships in health services for patients with complex health care needs. More recently he has written on complexity and complex adaptive systems as evaluative frameworks to assess health service programmes and patient outcomes.

He leads the Special Interest Group for Integrated Care of the European Health Management Association and works with colleagues across England to establish an Integrated Care Researcher Network. He is teaching Research Methodologies, Quantitative Approaches and Statistics/SPSS on the MCh and MRes course in the faculty and supervises currently three PhD students and several Master’s students. He is leading a module in Strategic Clinical Leadership and the dissertation module for the MCh (taught) degree.

From 1 August 2020, Birgit Beger is the Chief Executive Officer of the European Heart Network. She has more than fifteen years of public affairs experience in Brussels and an impressive track record in European health policy and federation management. She was Secretary General of the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME) for over 5 years. Before her post as CPME Secretary General, she was Senior Legal advisor at the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) responsible inter alia for Information Technology Law and European Contract Law.

Birgit Beger is a registered lawyer in Berlin and holds masters in law and political science from Freie Universität Berlin.

Carlo Signorelli, MD, MSc, PhD is Full Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Parma and at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele of Milan. He is Director of the Post-Graduate School in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine and He is currently the immediate Past-President of the Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health (SItI) and Tresaurer of the European Public health Association (EUPHA). He qualified in Medicine at the University of Milan in 1986, he holds an MSc in Epidemiology and a PhD (1994) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. His research work focuses on public health, epidemiology, environmental health, health organisation and immunization policies. With reference to the latter, he has been coordinator of the Vaccine Section of S.It.I. (2009-2012), co-author of three consecutive editions of the Life-time immunization Schedule (the Italian Scientific Societies’ recommendations on vaccines) and consultant to the Ministry of Health on the Italian National Immunization Prevention Plan. He is author or co-author of 40 teaching books in the fields of epidemiology, environmental health and public health, about 200 indexes scientific papers and over 1200 publications overall.

Dr. Carolyn Steele Gray is a Scientist at the Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her program of work focuses on the role of digital health in supporting integrated and person-centred care delivery for patients with complex care needs. She has studied and published in this topic across the technology life-cycle, including development, implementation and evaluation of digital health solutions. Dr. Steele Gray co-leads an international Special Interest Group in Digital Health Enabling Integrated Care under the International Federation of Integrated Care (IFIC) as well as is the Co-Founder of the International Learning Collaborative for Goal-Oriented Care.

Cees Smit (1951) is a long time patient advocate in the international patient community with multiple chronic conditions. In August, 2020 he published his autobiography ‘Surviving hemophilia, a road trip through the world of healthcare’.

He studied business economics at the Free University in Amsterdam. He worked from 1987 till 1998 as co-ordinator of the Netherlands Haemophilia Society (NVHP). From 1998 till 2002, he worked in the mental health area. From 1978 till now, he has been member of the research project ‘Haemophilia in The Netherlands’ at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC).

In January, 2003 he received an honorary doctorate from the college of deans of the University of Amsterdam in recognition for his work on patient participation, haemophilia and medical biotechnology.

He published more than 15 books on topics like hemophilia, hiv, ageing, nutrition and patient participation in the drug development process.

Cristian Busoi has a PhD in Public Health and Health Management. He graduated in medicine at the “Carol Davila” University in Bucharest, in Law at the Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest, and in diplomacy at the Romanian Diplomatic Institute in Bucharest. His political career started in 1996 when, as a young student, he became a member of the National Liberal Party. Eight years later, he entered the Romanian Parliament as Member of the Committee for Health and Family and in 2013 became President of the National Health Insurance.

He is a Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine and the Euronest Delegation. He is also a substitute Member on the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and the Delegation for Relations with India.

He has been MEP from 2007-2013 and since 2014.

Professor Damien Gruson, Pharm. Biol., Eur. Specialist in Laboratory Medicine, PhD., worked from 2008 as specialist in Laboratory Medicine at Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, an academic hospital in Brussels, Belgium. He is currently the head of the department of Clinical Biochemistry of the Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc and member of the research unit on Endocrinology Diabetes and Nutrition of the Catholic University of Louvain. He has published numerous articles in several international peer-reviewed journals. He is actually a member of the executive committee of the division on Emerging Technology of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine. Prof. Gruson is also a member of the working group on
cardiac markers of the European Federation of Laboratory Medicine. Pr. D. Gruson is also actively participating to the activities of the European Society of Cardiology as fellow, and of the Belgian Thyroid Club, as board member.

Dimitra Panteli joined the Senior Management Team of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies on October 1, 2020. Prior to this she spent more than a decade at the Department of Health Care Management at Berlin University of Technology, where she was a senior research fellow, the Department`s research coordinator (2017-2020) and a frequent contributor of the Observatory’s research.

Dimitra’s work focuses on evidence- based decision-making in health care, primarily health technology assessment, and health systems research, for example on pharmaceutical regulation and quality assurance. She regularly collaborates with diverse stakeholders, including Ministries of Health, regulatory institutions, insurers, national institutes for public health and quality assurance, health technology assessment agencies, and professional associations.

She received her doctorate in public health from Berlin University of Technology, her MScPH. from the Charité Medical University in Berlin (as a scholar of the German Academic Exchange Service) and her Medical Degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).

Ed Harding has worked for many years in the development of multi-disciplinary policy advocacy networks in health, and in health policy research and writing. He has led several high-level international collaborations in healthcare, many of which have achieved substantial public endorsement. He is a specialist at combining policy research and stakeholder engagement efforts into impactful and original political engagement. This involves working with senior figures in public life from a variety of backgrounds, typically in a highly competitive and often sensitive political environment. Formerly he has led several senior roles in government, NGO sector, and political campaigns.

Recent roles in the Health Policy Partnership portfolio include Programme Director, Heart Failure Policy Network (since 2015) and he has led other international HPP policy and research projects in osteoporosis and CVD risk factor management.

Eileen is a highly experienced chairman, having chaired a number of large, complex public and third sector organisations, including acute, specialised mental health and primary care trusts (PCTs). She established Salford PCT in 2001, which became one of the highest performing PCTs in the country. Latterly, she chaired NHS Greater Manchester, the largest PCT cluster in England. By 1 April 2013 NHS Greater Manchester had facilitated the establishment of 12 CCGs and the safe handover of PCT services to new receiving organisations in the ten Greater Manchester Metropolitan Borough Councils.

All of Eileen’s NHS roles have involved partnership working with the private and third sectors and local government. She has always ensured that the perspectives of patients and communities contribute to service developments. She has championed a number of whole systems innovative service redesign programmes, including mental health, children’s and women’s health, urgent care and the Greater Manchester Healthier Together programme.

Eileen is Professor in Public Health at the University of Salford, where she has an international research profile.

Dr Ellen Nolte’s main research is the field of health systems, including approaches to health system performance assessment, health system responses to chronic disease, international health system comparisons, and trends and determinants of population health in former communist countries of central and eastern Europe.

Nolte has published widely on health system performance assessment, European health policy, and the health implications of political and socioeconomic transition in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In 1998, she was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship, funded by the European Commission, to undertake her Ph.D. at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she worked as senior lecturer in the Health Services Research Unit and held a prestigious National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist Award.

Her main interest and expertise is in health systems research, international health care comparisons and performance assessment. Over the past decade she led a programme of work around international health care comparisons and developed an internationally recognised research portfolio around innovative service models that seek to better meet the needs of people with complex and long-term health problems, with a particular focus on care coordination and integration within and across sectors. A parallel strand of work has involved advancing the development of metrics to assess the impact of health systems on population health, in particular around avoidable mortality. She currently leads a project that seeks to better understand the role of health system factors and international variation in cancer survival as part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership.

Elly Breedveld, MSc, PhD, is Director at Perspekt (since September 2020), a quality institute in Dutch health care that focuses on stimulating and accounting for quality from a vision, in which values and results for the client are central. Perspekt supports providers of care and welfare in working on continuous quality improvement through the PREZO quality system and the narrative quality model PREZO Care based on dialogue.

Since 1991 Elly Breedveld worked in the health care sector as an educator, strategic advisor, coach and researcher in the field of health policy and management. She acquired, managed and conducted policy-oriented research and consultancy projects for various commissioning organizations.

Prior to joining Perspekt she worked as an independent entrepreneur at Elly Breedveld Consulting, was Programme Director of the Erasmus Executive Master of Health Business Administration (MBA-Health) at the Erasmus Centre for Health Care Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Strategic advisor of the Board of Directors of a large Dutch integrated long-term care and home care organization and Coordinator Academic Collaborative Centers at the Scientific Centre for Transformation in Healthcare and Welfare (Tranzo / Tilburg University) in cooperation with healthcare providers.

She was member and vice-chairman of the Board of Trustees of several healthcare organizations in the Netherlands (since 2001) and member of the Board of the European Health Management Association (since 2016).

Elly Breedveld studied Health Policy and Management at the Erasmus University Rotterdam from 1986 till 1991. In 2003 she defended her PhD thesis on the introduction of market incentives and the reform of the Dutch home care sector, at Tilburg University.

Eric van der Hijden is leading the research team “Financial incentives for appropriate care” at the Talma Institute of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also senior policy advisor healthcare procurement strategy and innovation at Zilveren Kruis Health Insurance in the Netherlands.

Dr. Erik Ranschaert is active as radiologist in the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He graduated from the KU Leuven Medical School, Leuven (Belgium) in 1989. He completed his speciality training in Radiology at the University Hospital of Leuven in 1994. In 2016 he obtained his PhD degree (doctorate in medical sciences) at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His main field of interest is innovation and digitization in radiology. In 2000 he was co-founder of  Eurad Consult, one of the pioneering teleradiology companies in Europe. He currently is vice-president of the European Society of Medical Imaging Informatics (EUSOMII) and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Diagnose.me.

Erik van Raaij, Ph.D., is Professor of Purchasing & Supply Management in Healthcare at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) and the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management (ESHPM), both at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His current research interests include Healthcare Contracting, Healthcare Supply Management, Buyer-Supplier Relationships, and Empirical Research Methods. His work has been published in international academic journals such as Health Policy, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management and California Management Review. He is Academic Director of the BSc Bedrijfskunde programme at Rotterdam School of Management and Senior Associate Editor of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management.

Ernst Kuipers trained in gastroenterology and hepatology. He was appointed as a member of the Executive Board on 1 December 2012 and has chaired the Board since 15 March 2013. He was educated in the Netherlands (in Groningen, Enschede, Deventer and Amsterdam) and, after obtaining his PhD, spent several years working in Nashville, USA.

He was appointed as a Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and head of our Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2000, and in 2006 also became head of the Department of Internal Medicine. Among many other things, he was the driving force behind the launch of the national bowel cancer screening programme.

The combination of his academic interests and his managerial experience in a wide range of international organisations and committees has given him a broad outlook on both national and international issues, as indeed he needs in order to perform his duties as chair of the Board.

Esther Metting, PhD, studied psychology and clinical/psychosocial epidemiology and is post-researcher at the Groningen Research Institute of Asthma and COPD Primary care group (GRIAC-PC) based in the department of General Practice in the University Medical Center Groningen. Field of expertise is the epidemiology of asthma, COPD and ACOS in primary care. She is the head of data assessment of the Asthma/COPD service an integrated care project of the GRIAC and the CERTE laboratories and is the project leader of the international IRW inhalation technique project. Overall aim of her daily research is to improve the care for asthma and COPD patients by obtaining information from real life data. Above that, in several studies patients’ opinions were evaluated via interviews or focus groups so that this information can be used in patient centered health care applications. She is involved in several national and international eHealth studies. Esther supervised many master students during their scientific internship.

In September 2020, Ewoud started working as a Project Manager at the Wilhelmina Hospital in Assen. Together with the Manager Healthcare Transformation he is involved in leading a transformation in clinical care at the general nursing wards of the hospital. The starting point for this transformation is the ambition of the hospital: ‘The inhabitant of Drenthe as the healthiest and most vital inhabitant of the Netherlands’. Guidelines of this transformation will be the quadruple aim. Furthermore, Ewoud is also active as an advisor at Digital Care Team of the hospital.

Ewoud successfully completed his traineeship at High Select in August 2020. As a Management Trainee he was active in various roles at care organizations in primary, second and tertiary care in the Northern Netherlands.

In 2018, Ewoud completed his MSc-degree in Business Administration with a specialization in Change Management at the University of Groningen (RUG). Within the Master, he has focused on Healthcare Management. He wrote his thesis at the Martini Hospital in Groningen and is currently working with two Assistant Professors from the University of Groningen to publish his thesis. As a basis, Ewoud obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen.

Dr Ewout van Ginneken is Coordinator of the Berlin office of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies at the Berlin University of Technology. He holds a master’s degree in health policy and administration from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and a PhD in public health from the Berlin University of Technology. His expertise is in comparative international health systems research and health policy research. His main interests include health financing, insurance competition, care purchasing, integrated care, cross-border care, and migrants’ access to care. He has edited several Health Systems in Transition (HiT) reviews including on the health-care systems of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States of America. He has published widely on these topics in international peer-reviewed literature and the wider literature. Before joining the Observatory, Ewout was a senior researcher at the Berlin University of Technology and a 2011–2012 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Prof. Federico Lega, Ph.D, is a member of the EHMA Board and Professor of Health Administration at Milan University, Italy. In the last ten years, he has advised several companies of the medical industry on their transformation toward value-based models and for the development of effective market-access initiatives. Since 2002 he has coordinated over fifteen initiatives of duality or study-tour, involving the exchange of managers and senior clinicians between countries (Italy, UK, USA, Germany and France).

He currently seats in the boards of hospitals and local health authorities, advises health departments of Regions, national health agencies and insurances, and worked as a consultant for WHO. Since 2015 is acting as Editor in Chief of the journal Health Services Management Research, Associate Editor of BMC health services research and Medical Care Research Review. He has published eight books and over 150 articles on journals.

Francesca Colombo, M.Sc., is Head of the Health Division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. She is responsible for work on health, which aims at providing internationally comparable data on health systems and applying economic analysis to health policies, advising policy makers, stakeholders and citizens on how to respond to demands for more and better health care and make health systems more people centred. Major activities of the OECD Health Division cover trends in health spending; measuring of health care outcomes, activities and inputs; health care quality policies; assessing health system efficiency and value for money; long-term care systems and ageing; the economics of public health; pharmaceutical policies, new technologies and big data in health; and health workforce. Major publications resulting from the work of the Division she manages includes Health at a Glance, Tackling Wasteful Spending on Health, New Health Technologies, Tackling Harmful Alcohol Use, Making Mental Health Count, Health Data Governance, and Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes: Policies for Better Health and Quality of Care.

Mrs Colombo has over 20 years of experience leading international activities on health and health systems. She has led projects covering a wide range of topics, including quality of health care policies, health financing and the impact of private health insurance on health systems, health workforce and the international migration of doctors and nurses. She has been responsible for the OECD Asian Social and Health activities with non-member countries, working with the OECD/Korea Policy Centre. She is a leading international expert on health and care issues for elderly populations and also held responsibilities for co-ordinating OECD involvement at high-level meetings such as on diabetes, dementia and health workforce.

Mrs Colombo joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1999. Prior to that, she was seconded to the Ministry of Health and Labour of Guyana as acting head of the Planning Unit, where she was instrumental to the implementation of financing and governance reforms of the health system, and also worked at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Over her career, she has travelled extensively in Europe, South America and Asia, advising governments on health system policies and reforms. She holds a M.Sc. in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and B.Sc. in economics and management from Bocconi University.

Frank Eijkenaar, Ph.D., is an associate professor of health economics at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research focuses mainly on the design, implementation, and effects of alternative, value-based payment models for healthcare providers, as well as on performance measurement/benchmarking and risk adjustment for provider and health plan payment. As a teacher, he has been involved in the bachelor program ‘health sciences’ and the master program ‘health economics, policy, and law’ at ESHPM, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

George has extensive European and international experience to this role, having worked in executive roles specializing in health policy, research, systems thinking, management, human rights, education and training. He is a Greek and has lived and worked in Switzerland, France, Australia, Belgium, and Scotland. Before joining EHMA, he worked as Chief Executive Officer of HIV Scotland for seven years, managing multiple strategic policy and education collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, researchers, policy makers, insurers, health services, community members, and professional medical bodies. Earlier he was an education specialist for the International AIDS Society, developing global initiatives for pre and post doctoral researchers in prevention, clinical and biomedical research. He also served on the Board of Diabetes Australia and as an Advisor on its Medical Education and Science Council. In these roles he helped govern the National Diabetes Services Scheme which was a €65 million government contract to supply medical products, education, and services. He is also engaged as a consultant on various projects including: as the Principal Strategic Advisory to the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland), and; as an associate on biomedical citizen projects with the Medical School fo the University of Edinburgh.

Dr. Guillaume Dedet is a health economist and policy analyst at the OECD health division. He co-leads the work around the “State of Health in the EU” cycle. Guillaume is a public health physician (MD in Public Health from the Greater Paris Academic Hospital) and holds additional post-graduate degrees in statistics (MSc from University Paris-Sud), health economics (MSc from LSE) and diplomacy (MA from SOAS). Prior to joining the OECD, Guillaume served as a technical officer in the Division of Health Systems and Public Health at the WHO Regional Office for Europe and as senior advisor in the Health Financing Division of the French Ministry of Health.

Professor Harish Nair is Chair of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health and leads the Respiratory Viral Epidemiology research programme at the University of Edinburgh. He has led several large collaborative projects on global child health and infectious diseases. He currently leads (and is the co-ordinator of) the REspiratory Syncytial virus Consortium in EUrope (RESCEU) and the Respiratory Virus Global Epidemiology Network (RSV GEN). He also leads the Infectious Diseases Research Programme in the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Respiratory Health (RESPIRE). He is a co-founder of ReSViNET. In 2019, Professor Nair was awarded the Principal’s Medal for Exceptional Service by the University of Edinburgh; and the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award by the NRI Society of India.

Prof. dr. Henk Nies graduated at a psycho-gerontologist and obtained his PhD on elderly care policies. He was involved in various national and international programs on long-term care, integrated care and quality in long-term care. He was CEO of Vilans from its very beginning in 2007 and member of the Executive Board until 2019. At present, he is Director of Strategy & Development. Since 2011 he is professor of Organisation and Policy Development in Long-term Care at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Furthermore, he is member of the Quality Council at the National Health Care Institute of the Netherlands. He is a member of EHMA’s Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC).

Colonel Henk Van der Wal is Commanding Officer, Institute for Defence and Partnership Hospitals at the Ministry of Defence of The Netherlands. He is also PhD Candidate “Value-Base military Health Care” at Erasmus Medical Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Jan Kimpen is the Philips Chief Medical Officer, a position he has held since January 2016.

As the leader for clinical strategy, medical affairs and health economics, Jan and his team work collaboratively to advance clinical capabilities and customer growth opportunities at Philips, including M&A.

Jan also leads the Philips Medical Leadership Team at Philips – a team 80 clinicians and medical PhDs with responsibility for advocacy, customer partnerships, clinical trials and market access.

A frequent speaker on value-based care and digital innovation in healthcare, Jan represents Philips on the WEF Global Future Council on Healthcare, the alliance with the American Heart Association, and the Board of Sanara Ventures in Israel. He is responsible for the yearly publication of Philips’ Future Health Index.

Jan joined the company from the University Medical Center Utrecht – one of the largest healthcare organizations in the Netherlands – where was a professor and chairman of Pediatrics before serving as CEO from 2009 to 2015.

Jeroen Struijs, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Campus the Hague, and senior researcher at the Department of Quality of Care and Health Economics, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). His research covers a broad range of topics surrounding payment reforms and innovations in the organization of health care systems. His recent work has looked at the effects of alternative payment models especially on bundled payments and shared savings models. He has published multiple peer-reviewed articles in journals among which Health Affairs, New England Journal of Medicine, Health Services Research and Health Policy. In addition, he published blog articles on the NEJM Catalyst and Health Affairs. He is a former Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, and was placed at Harvard School of Public Health. He holds a Ph.D. degree from University of Amsterdam, and two master’s degrees – one in health sciences from Maastricht University, and one in health services research from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Her experience of the Pharmacy world has been extraordinary so far. After becoming one of the first APPEL Student Representatives, she found an interest in education and policy initiatives whilst learning about experiential learning placements. During the Pharmacy Students Campaign 2019, they overturned the ban on paid pharmacy placements. She received a national award for Access to Education and a university award for Leadership. This was also the start of the involvement of Irish pharmacy students in healthcare policy and regulation.

As the President of the Irish Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (IPSA) 2019-2020, the team pushed forward in Advocacy for the first time and created several Positions on Irish initiatives related to pharmacy. After receiving a First Class Honours for her Bachelor of Pharmacy degree, she was titled UCC Graduate of the Year Runner-Up for her activity on pharmacy-related projects.

During the Master of Pharmacy programme, she became the Vice President of European Affairs of the European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (EPSA) 2020-2021. The central duties of this role include policy and advocacy at the European level, representing over 100,000 pharmacy students across Europe. She is also a Trainee at the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU), the umbrella organisation for community pharmacies across Europe. This role will link in with her four years of experience in community pharmacy, an internship at the Health Service Executive, and the policy initiatives she have been involved in.

Now a qualified pharmacist, her interest has evolved. As sustainable healthcare is becoming more imminent, she would love to see the pharmacy profession become a more prominent position in healthcare. Students play an important role in contributing to this initiative and she look forward to seeing what’s next to come.

Joan Tell is Director of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences in MSD’s Corporate Product Stewardship and Science Group of Global Safety and the Environment.  Joan received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in Environmental Sciences, focusing on the fate and transport of organic contaminants in the environment.  Her current responsibilities include managing a team of occupational and environmental toxicologists to support worker and environmental safety, coordination of environmental fate and effects testing of our products to support Environmental Risk Assessments, and facilitating chemical notifications and registrations worldwide.  Additionally, she supports all MSD facilities performing human or ecological risk assessments by leveraging expertise in environmental fate modeling in all media (air, water, soil, groundwater), toxicology, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and risk assessment methodologies.  Joan represents MSD in the AMR Industry Alliance environmental team and leads the science sub-team.  This team is working diligently to drive change in how we assess the environmental dimensions of AMR using science-driven, risk-based approaches.  Joan has worked for MSD for over 20 years and has been conducting risk assessments for over 30.

Johan Hansen is senior research international comparison of health systems at Nivel. Internationally, he has been coordinating Nivel activities in a number of international networks and collaborations. His main research interests are health services and health systems with a particular focus on the organisation of health and care services, the transferability and upscaling of such services and the relationships between health services research and policy making including priority setting of HSR. At national level, he among others conducts health care organisation and health workforce research, including task shifting, collaboration and trust relations between health care professionals and the execution of health workforce planning models. In addition, he is involved in studies addressing the uptake of public health and health service innovations into the national health care system.

Josep Figueras, MD, MPH, PhD (econ) is the Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. In addition to WHO, he has served major multilateral organizations such as the European Commission and the World Bank. He has served as policy advisor in more than 40 countries within Europe and beyond. He is a member of several governing, advisory and editorial boards, including the board of the European Health Forum Gastein.

He is an honorary fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine (United Kingdom); received the Andrija Stampar Medal for excellence in Public Health and a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Semmelweis University (Hungary); and has twice been awarded the European Health Management Association prize. He is currently a visiting professor at Imperial College London (United Kingdom), and an external examiner at London, Maastricht and Cork universities. He was Director of the MSc in Health Services Management and lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom).

His research focuses on comparative health system and policy analysis. He is an editor of the Observatory series published by Open University Press, and has published a wide range of volumes in this field, most recently: “Health systems governance” (2015); “Economic crisis: impact and implications for health systems policy in Europe” (2014); “Health systems, health and wealth: assessing the case for investing in health systems” (2012); “Health professional mobility and health systems. Evidence from 17 European countries” (2011); and “Cross-border health care in the European Union. Mapping and analysing practices and policies” (2011).

Josep Figueras is based at the Observatory’s Secretariat in Brussels, Belgium.

After obtaining a degree in Medicine (University of Barcelona), he began his internship in Pediatrics at SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital. When he finished, he had a strong connection with Pediatric Emergencies and the Short Stay Unit at the same hospital. At the same time he embarked on his scientific career and he awarded a PhD in Medicine in 1999. He has participated in a number of competitive projects and he has supervised four doctoral theses. He has specialised in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and care for hospitalised children and he is the teaching coordinator for the hospital’s interns and he has been the head of the Pediatrics Department since 2013. He credited as a tenured lecturer, and he is currently an associate lecturer at the Universitat de Barcelona.

Karin Keeis a PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam. Her research interests include employee voice behavior, occupational role identity, and shared decision-making in healthcare.

Prof. Kees Ahaus, Ph.D., is full professor of Health Services Management & Organization (HSMO) at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is section leader of the HSMO research group and member of the ESHPM management team. In addition, he is academic director of the Executive Master of Health Business Administration offered by the Erasmus Centre for Healthcare Management.

His research interests are value-based health care, lean, quality improvement and integrated care. At the conference he will share his recent research on crisis management during Covid-19. He teaches Health Services Operations Management in the Healthcare Management Master and Quality of Care in the Bachelor Health Policy & Management. He is associate editor of BMC Health Services Research, academic editor of PLOS ONE and member of the editorial review board of the International Journal of Operations & Production Management.

Prof.dr. Kim Putters is Professor of Health Management at the institute of Health Policy and Management of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. As a public administration scientist he is part of the Healthcare Governance department. He wrote his PhD on the reforms in Dutch healthcare towards more entrepreneurship in health management. Putters was worked at the department of Public Administration within the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Erasmus University until 2003, and at the Tilburg School of Politics and Administration at the Tilburg University until 2008. From 1997 until 2003 he also worked as an advisor to the Ministry of Health at the Council for Health and Social Service.

As a thought leader Kristine Sørensen is committed to advance the global scale and scope of health literacy. Her educational background is in medicine, public health and global health diplomacy. She has acted as advisor on health literacy for EU, WHO, ECDC, the European Parliament, Council of Europe and McKinsey. Kristine Sørensen is also the focal point for Health Literacy Europe – a network for advancing European health literacy and founder of the International Health Literacy Association. She is member of the global advisory boards of the Asian Health Literacy Association, Bridge4Health (CAN), Health Literacy for Children and Adolescence (DE) and Health Literacy at the Work Place (DE). I n the Netherlands where she is based she is appointed for the Board of Commissioners of Kindante (NL) and an active member of Rotary International.

M.Sc. (Econ.), B.Sc. (Med.) Laura Pitkänen has twelve years of experience within the healthcare sector, both from the point of view of a management consultant and from inside private service providers. She is currently responsible for outcomes measurement related projects and services at NHG. In addition to working at NHG, she has worked for private healthcare service providers, pharma, and HEMA Institute. She is currently also working as a part-time researcher at Helsinki University, working on her doctoral dissertation.

Dr. Liisa-Maria Voipio-Pulkki is currently serving as the Director General of Strategic Affairs and Chief Medical Officer of the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

She joined the Ministry in 2010 as the Director of the Health Care Group, concentrating on the health system per-formance and hospital reform issues.

Previously she was employed as the Senior Medical Adviser of the Finnish Association of Local and Regional Authori-ties in 2004-2009, Chief of Emergency and Acute Care of the Helsinki University Hospital District in 2000-2004 and as a specialist and Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the University of Turku, Finland.

Since 2014 she has been actively involved in the Finnish Government´s “Health Growth Strategy” of personalized med-icine, supporting the establishment of hospital biobanks, the national genome center and the implementation of the new act on secondary use of health and social data.

Since 2017 she has chaired the Steering Committee of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a WHO hosted partnership supporting evidence-informed health policy making.

Most recently, she has been actively involved in the the Finnish EU Council Presidency during the second half of 2019.

Lill Sverresdatter Larsen was elected president of the Norwegian Nurses Organisation in November 2019. She is a trained nurse from UiT Norway’s Arctic University, has a master’s degree in health sciences and a doctorate in health sciences. She is on leave from her position as an associate professor at UiT Norway’s Arctic University, where she teaches at the Department of Health and Care Sciences in subjects such as elderly care, mental health and substance abuse and science theory and methodology

Maria da Graça Carvalho is currently a member of the European Parliament. She was a senior advisor of Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, from November 2014 to December 2015. Previously, she was a member of the European Parliament, between July 2009 and May 2014. In that capacity, she was one of the rapporteurs of Horizon 2020. She was also Principal Adviser to President Barroso in the fields of Science, Higher Education, Innovation, Research Policy, Energy, Environment and Climate Change from 2006 to 2009. She served as a Minister of Science and Higher Education of the XV Constitutional Government of Portugal and Minister of Science, Innovation and Higher Education of the XVI Constitutional Government. She is a Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon).

Maria Reinius (RN, PhD) is a researcher at the Medical Management Centre at the department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics at Karolinska Institutet, member of the Intervention processes and outcomes research group (PROCOME). Her general research area is the quality of life for people with long-term condition and she currently holds a post doc position in the partnership research program “Patients in the driver’s seat”, which studies implementation of patient-driven innovations for self-care and co-care. 

Marit Tanke, M.D., Ph.D., is head of Strategy & Innovation at cVGZ, health insurer, in the Netherlands. Previously, she served as deputy chief of the Celsus Academy of Sustainable Health Care, a collaboration of the VWS Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen, with a research portfolio focused on outcome measurement and value-based purchasing strategies, health policy, healthcare reform, reimbursement design, and large-scale healthcare transformations. In 2016-2017, she was a Commonwealth Fund Dutch Harkness/VWS Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice.  From 2010-2015, she was a Manager at KPMG Healthcare NL and the KPMG Global Center of Excellence, where she worked on a number of large-scale initiatives, including the development of a nation-wide program on outcome based measurements using Patient-Reported Outcome Measures. She was member of the Dutch National ThinkTank in 2008 and worked at the pediatric department of the Haga-hospital in The Hague. She received a medical degree, as well as a Ph.D. in biological psychiatry in a joint program at the University Medical Center Groningen.

Marius Buiting is director of the Dutch Association of Supervisors in Healthcare Institutions (NVTZ) and has also worked for more than 25 years as a consultant in the field of quality of care – including at the CBO and as president of the European Society for Quality in Healthcare (ESQH). He also has various social functions.

Marzena Nelken is a member of the board of the European Patient’s Forum.

She is an experienced member of Federation of Polish Patients and a board member in the Polish PKU and RD Association Ars Vivendi. She has been working with patients with phenylketonuria and other metabolic diseases for over 19 years, starting as a volunteer. Now she supervises and coordinates projects in Federation of Polish Patients working on both national and international level.

Marzena is involved in organising events in Poland for patients with different diseases (the biggest one for about 500 people). She led the Polish Metabolic Academy 2020 with patients, professionals, pharmaceutical companies and Polish ministers representing Ministry of Health. Marzena Nelken also chaired a big annual conference on rare diseases with representatives of Polish government and the Ministry of Health as the official part of celebrating the International Day of Rare Diseases in Poland.

She is involved in coordinating public dialog between Polish Ministry of Health, Government and patients’ community in Poland.

Marzena is active in EUPATI project on both international and national level as a ENP SPA (Sustaining Partners Assembly) Cluster representative and a coordinator of the meetings of Polish EUPATI National Platform.

Moreover she graduated the EUPATI academy in 3rd Cohort making a big contribution in educating and sharing her knowledge on clinical trials with other patients’ representatives in the country. She is a trainer, an educator and a translator.

Marzena has translated many booklets, information, mostly on rare diseases, so patients in Poland have the most updated knowledge about their disease. She worked with doctors, lawyers, psychologists and dieticians to publish handbooks for patients.

Mathieu Boudes joined EPF in February 2018 as the coordinator of the IMI-funded public/private partnership initiative – PARADIGM – on patient engagement during the lifecycle of medicines.

Previously, he worked at EURORDIS (2013-2017) in activities to advocate and foster the access of innovation to patients. Mathieu has previously worked in France, Belgium and Sweden as a biomedical scientist.

Mathieu holds a PhD in Bio-Medical science from the University of Montpellier (France) and an Accelerated Management Programme from Solvay Business School.

MD PhD, Professor, Chair of the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics and Director, Medical Management Centre (MMC), Karolinska Institutet. Joined Karolinska Institutet in 2002 to establish the MMC, as a Guest Professor from 2003 to 2010 and as a full Professor in a permanent position from 2010 onwards.

Mats Brommels is specialist in general internal medicine and in addition he holds qualification in medical administration awarded by the National Board of Health to Finnish medical specialists. He presented his doctoral thesis in 1981 on a systems study of regional service provision in internal medicine. After ten years as a clinician, his research and early interest in issues relating to organisation led him to take up an administrative career. He worked for the Finnish Hospital League, he has been responsible for classification issues at the Finnish National Board of Health and worked as chief medical administrator at a Finnish university hospital. Between 1988 and 1992 he was Professor of Health Services Management at the Nordic School of Public Health, and was appointed Professor of Health Services Management at the University of Helsinki in 1991, serving in that position until 2010, part-time during 2002-2010. In the period 1997-2002 he holded the Chair of the University’s Department of Public Health. In the years 2000-2001 he acted as part-time Director of the Centre for Health Systems Analysis in Gothenburg, Sweden.

He has been board member of the European Health Management Association between 1989 and 1994, serving as its President between 1991 and 1993. He has been involved in organisational development and in a consultative capacity in the field of public health services in a number of Nordic countries, and have been engaged in the administrative and management training of Finnish doctors since 1976.

His researches have covered policy analysis in the field of public health services and international comparative studies of public health systems; health care utilisation studies; and evaluation of medical technologies and professional practice patterns, health services management, quality improvement and patient safety.

Dr Matthias Wismar is programme manager at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. He is leading, managing and developing studies, policy briefs, rapid responses and face-to-face dissemination events including policy dialogues, evidence briefings, book launches and webinars. His main areas of interest are health policy, politics and governance; civil society and health; European integration and health and health systems; the health workforce; and health in all policies (HiAP).

He holds a doctorate in political science from Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany) and has also studied at the University of Southampton (UK) and at the Nuffield College, Oxford (UK). Before joining the Observatory he was heading a health policy research unit at Medical School Hanover (Germany).

Matthijs Zwier is an independent business owner. In his work, he combines strategy, change management, social constructionism and twenty years experience in and around health and healthcare. The current roles and activities include quarter maker Dutch Association of Supervisors in Healthcare Institutions (NVTZ), Advisory Board of the European Health Futures Forum (EHFF), Associated Senior Advisor at Raedelijn (The Netherlands) and Strategic Partner of the Municipality of Utrecht.

Maya Matthews has worked in public health for the past 20 years. She was appointed as Head of the Performance of Health Systems Unit, at the European Commission’s Health and Food Safety Directorate General in October 2020. She was previously Deputy Head of Unit in the Strategy and Coordination unit. From 2013-2016, Maya was posted to the European Union’s Delegation to the United Nations in Geneva where she covered health issues and relations with the World Health Organisation. Before joining the European Commission in 2008, Maya worked in Brussels for European Network of Health Promotion Agencies ( now Eurohealthnet) and consulted on reproductive health, HIV prevention and Tuberculosis. Maya holds a BA in Human Sciences from Oxford University and a Masters in Health Promotion Sciences from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she also worked as a researcher from 1993-1995 on HIV knowledge, attitude and behaviour surveys in Europe.

Michele is Policy Adviser at the European Patients’ Forum where he leads the Forum’s activities on digital health policy and support advocacy activities on a number of other key topics. As EPF PA he also co-leads the activities of the EU4Health Civil Society Alliance (www.eu4health.eu) and coordinates EPF’s engagement with multi-stakeholder initiatives and with the European Parliament.

Before joining EPF in 2020, Michele worked as Policy and Communications Manager at the European Health Management Association (EHMA) (2016-2020), where he coordinated policy and communication activities and EU funded projects work, such as with TO-REACH, focused on health systems research, and IC-Health, focused on digital health literacy.

Michele is also part of several youth health policy networks, including the Young Forum Gastein, the Young Coalition for Prevention and Vaccination and the European Health Parliament Alumni group).

Mirella Cacace is Economist and Professor of health care systems and health policy at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Freiburg, Germany. She is also leading a project on the transformation of health care systems in Central & Eastern Europe at the CRC 1342 “Global Dynamics of Social Policy” at the University of Bremen. Previous professional experiences include health policy analyst at RAND Europe and the Commonwealth Fund’s Harkness fellowship at Columbia University, New York. Mirella earned her PhD at Bremen University and holds a diploma in economics from the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg. Her main areas of research concern institutional economics, health care governance, and international health and longterm-care systems.

Prof. Dr. Mirella Minkman is distinguished Professor of Innovation of organization and governance of integrated long term care (Vilans Chair) and Director Research and Innovation at Vilans. She has extensive experience in the field of health care organization, collaboration issues and change processes. Her research focuses on how to organize and govern person centered and integrated care and welfare in our highly dynamic environment. As the health and welfare domain is a subject to structural changes and transformation, clients, professionals and boards are correspondingly confronted with challenges that have become increasingly complex. Mirella Minkman’s studies focus on what ingredients are essential and present in the organization and the government of integrated care, how they can interact and develop over time and what innovative concepts are possible and effective.

Mirella Minkman studied nursing at the HAN University of Applied Sciences, followed by Health Sciences at Maastricht University. In 2012 she obtained her PhD from Erasmus University with research in the integrated chain of care field, for which she won the EHMA/Karolinska Research award. Before becoming Program Leader of Innovation and Research at Vilans, Minkman worked as Program Leader in Elder Care at Vilans, led large scale implementation programs such as Zorg voor Beter and the National Dementia Program, and worked for the Dutch Institute for Healthcare Improvement CBO and in the Radboud University Medical Center. Alongside her position at Vilans, she is a supervisor at the Inovum Foundation and Board Editor for the International Journal for Integrated Care, among other things. Minkman is author and co-author of seven books in the field of health care and has publications in a range of professional literature, including internationally.

Misja Mikkers, Ph.D., R.A., is chief economist and manager of the Economic and Medical Bureau of the Dutch Healthcare Authority. He is responsible for economic research, data science and public health advice. Furthermore, he is professor Organization and financing of the health care sector at Tilburg University.

Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat is a medical doctor, a specialist in public health, and the author of several publications in public health and European health policy.
Following her qualification as a medical doctor from the University of Malta in 1995, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat worked in various areas in the health sector in Malta, including maternal and child health, mental health, and primary care. Her transdisciplinary research bridging health policy, European studies and small states studies led to her PhD entitled “The Europeanisation of health systems: a small state perspective”.

Since 1999, Natasha has been a resident academic at the University of Malta, teaching in the department of health services management and public health. In 2003, she completed her specialization in public health medicine and obtained her membership in the Faculty of Public Health of the United Kingdom. Between 2001 and 2013, she occupied various senior positions in the Ministry of Health in Malta, including that of Chief Medical Officer.

Before joining WHO, Dr Azzopardi-Muscat served as President of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) from 2016 to 2020, where she was actively involved in health advocacy at the European level.

Nick Zonneveld is a health services/system researcher with a Master’s in Public Administration from Erasmus University (2011). Nick currently is a PhD candidate at Tilburg University/TIAS and works at Vilans, Centre of Expertise in Long Term Care in the Netherlands. Nick is involved in several international projects on the organization and integration of health services in primary, social and long-term care.

Nigel Edwards joined the Nuffield Trust as Chief Executive in April 2014. His career has been spent in health service management and health policy, focusing particularly on innovation and change in the delivery of health services in the UK and internationally.

After graduating in PPE from Oxford University, Nigel entered NHS management as a graduate trainee, and went on to work at hospital and regional level.

He has worked for the King’s Fund, KPMG’s global practice and the NHS Confederation where he was Director of Policy and later Chief Executive. He is an honorary visiting professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he worked as Director of the London Health Economics Consortium from 1992 to 1999.

Nigel’s work and interests are wide ranging, from the development and implementation of new models of service delivery at the front line to wider health care policy in the UK and internationally.  He also has a strong interest in using different disciplines to inform health policy and has been developing the Trust’s work on recent NHS history.

Nigel is the lead contact for the Nuffield Trust’s work as the UK correspondent for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. He works regularly with the World Health Organisation and has advised on health service reform in a number of countries including Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Iraq.

Nigel is a regular contributor to the BMJ, a well-known conference speaker and a widely quoted media commentator with a strong Twitter following.

Oskar Roemeling is Assistant Professor at the Department of Innovation Management & Strategy of the University of Groningen. Next to his tasks for the department, he is associated with the University of Groningen Business School and the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health.

His main area of expertise lies in the application of Lean methods in healthcare environments, and Value Based Healthcare. In addition, he is interested in more general healthcare management challenges.

Paola Zaratin, PhD, joined the Italian MS Society (AISM) on February 2010 where she currently holds the position of Director of Scientific Research on Programs in Multiple Sclerosis Biomedical Research, Research in Public Health, Research in Rehabilitation, Communication in Scientific Research and Patients Engagement in Research. Paola has deep experience in Neuroscience research and in Drug Discovery and Development, acquired in Public, Private sectors and Patients’ Organizations and in the last twenty years in the field of Multiple Sclerosis. Paola has experience in leading national and international multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder teams and developing collaborative networks in Public, Profit and non Profit sectors. She’s the coordinator (2018-2021) of the EU Responsible Research Innovation H2020 MULTI-ACT project; co-chair of the Scientific Steering Committee (2019) of the global Patient Reported Outcomes Initiative for Multiple Sclerosis; member of the Scientific Steering Committee (2012) and of the Industry Forum (2014) of Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Alliance.

Patrick Jeurissen, Ph.D., is a full professor in fiscally sustainable health care systems at Radboud University Medical School and senior scientist at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports in the Netherlands. He is an expert on the design and implementation of policies that specifically address issues of finance, sustainability and affordability in health care. He has also ample experience with steering policy (research) groups and drafting flagship policy publications. He has (co)-authored some 100 academic publications, serves as an associate editor for Health Policy and is a sought for a speaker on (inter)national forums. He co-authored a handbook on cost-containment strategies in healthcare (Dutch).

Patrick is a member of the Steering Committee of OECD’s Health Committee and has been a consultant for the EU and WHO on the health care reform and the sustainability of healthcare systems. His major interests are strategic policymaking, health care finance and cost-containment policies, for-profit providers and payers, hospital and mental healthcare, solidarity in health care systems, and comparative health care system research. He holds a PhD in health economics, his dissertation covers for-profit hospital ownership in the US, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, and has an M.P.A., both from Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

PhD (tech.) Paulus Torkki is an associate professor of healthcare operations management at Helsinki University, Faculty of Medicine. After his doctoral dissertation, Torkki was researcher director of Healthcare Management Institute in Aalto University. His research interest and publications mainly focus on healthcare operations management, focusing on performance measurement, outcomes-based systems and development of care processes and pathways. Torkki has also been working in various management positions in healthcare consulting and IT. He is currently the development director of NHG.

Peter C. Smith is Emeritus Professor of Health Policy. He is a mathematics graduate from the University of Oxford, and started his academic career in the public health department at the University of Cambridge. He has worked and published in a number of disciplinary settings, including statistics, operational research and accountancy. However, his main work has been in the economics of health and the broader public services, and he was a previous Director of the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York. At Imperial he launched and co-directed the Centre for Health Policy in the Institute of Global Health Innovation. Peter has acted in numerous UK governmental advisory capacities. He has also advised many overseas governments and international agencies, including the World Health Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Commission, the Global Fund, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Petra Wilson is co-founder and managing director of Health Connect Partners, a boutique consultancy which focusses primarily on helping clients understand the European health policy environment. Current projects being undertaken by Health Connect Partners include the review of cross-border patient mobility for the European Commission and supporting the development of a governance framework for the European Health Data Space, as well as active engagement in several Horizon 2020 and IMI projects. In addition, Petra also acts as a senior advisor on health and life sciences to FTI Consulting and is engaged as EU Programme Director for the Personal Connected Health Alliance (a HIMSS innovation company). Alongside these roles, Petra serves on the WHO’s Digital Health Technical Advisory Group.

Petra’s past experience includes eight years in the European Commission, where she focussed particularly on the use of information society technologies in healthcare; and eight years as Senior Director of Connected Health at Cisco, where Petra’s team supported clients in making the best use of new communications technologies to drive safer and more efficient access to healthcare. Petra also has deep experience of the health services sector, having worked on both the patient and provider side as CEO of the International Diabetes Federation, as well as EU Director for the European Health Management Association.

Petra currently services as a Board Member of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, Honorary Counsel to HL7 Europe and Programme C0-Chair for ISPOR 2021.

Petra holds a Doctorate in Public Health Law from Oxford University, she has British and Belgian nationality, has lived in Brussels for over 20 years and works in English, German and French.

Dr. Pim P. Valentijn is Vice President of Essenburgh Research & Consultancy and Senior Researcher affiliated with Maastricht University.

Dr. Pim Valentijn is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on value-based integrated care. He is the inventor of the Rainbow Model and a highly regarded keynote speaker. His scientific research focuses on the added value of innovative care models and the steps that are needed to achieve better health, better care and lover costs. In short: He links science to practice.

With research, consultancy and teaching, he helps to build future-proof solutions that revolutionize how providers deliver care.

Professor Reinhard Busse, Dr. med. MPH, is department head for Health Care Management in the Faculty of Economics and Management at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. He is also Co-Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. His research focuses on methods and contents of comparative health system analysis and performance assessment, health services research (with emphasis on hospitals, human resources, financing and payment mechanisms), health economics and health technology assessment (HTA).

He is editor-in-chief of Health Policy (since 2011) and director of the Federal Ministry of Research-funded Berlin Centre of Health Economics Research (since 2012). He was speaker of the board of the inter-university Berlin School of Public Health (2015-2018) and President of the German Health Economics Association (2016/17). His department is supporting the School of Public Health in Kumasi, Ghana, in setting up a master’s program in Health Systems’ Research and Management.

Ricardo Castanheira is Technical Advisor in the Permanent Representations of Portugal in the European Union (REPER), in Brussels.

Previously, he was General Director of Motion Picture Association – Latin America, since 2013, which represents institutionally the six biggest studios in the world: Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, 21^st Century Fox, Universal, Paramount.

Ricardo Castanheira was also the Director for the Corporate Affairs for Microsoft Brazil, from 2011 to 2013; Director for the Juridical and Corporate Issues of Microsoft Portugal, from 2007 and 2011; President of FDTI (Foundation for the Promotion of Information Technologies), in Lisbon, between 2005 and 2007. For many years he practiced law as a main partner of CAPA – Law Firm, in Coimbra.

Between 1995 and 2002, he was the youngest deputy in the Portuguese Assembly, elected for Coimbra. He was also a Deputy of the NATO Assembly (1999/2002) and a petitioner of the Committee of the 24 in the United Nations, in NY.

He actively intervenes in diverse entities such as ABPI (Brazilian Association of the Intellectual Property) and Federation of the Portuguese Trade Chambers in Brazil.

H is graduated in Law (1997) for the University of Coimbra and he holds diverse additional formations: Negotiations for the University of Harvard – John F. Kennedy School of Government (Boston); in Communication Management for the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV); an Advanced Program in Management (AMP) for the Instituto de Empresa – Business School (Madrid) and a Mini – MBA for the INDEG Business School (Lisbon).

PhD (tech.) Riikka-Leena Leskelä has a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Aalto University. She has led or participated in about 200 development or research projects concerning social and healthcare including RWD studies, development and modeling of processes, care management, demand and supply analysis, health economic analysis and cost of illness studies, strategic analysis and business plans, KPIs and benchmarkin. She has worked with all the major hospitals in Finland as well as with major cities and municipalities.

Prof. Dr. Ronald Batenburg is trained as a sociologist and obtained his masters at Utrecht University and his PhD at Groningen University, the Netherlands. How job structures evolve within economies, sectors and organizations, and how these determine the quality of work of professionals, are the central questions he worked on at different universities and research institutes. As of 2009, he is program leader at the Netherlands institute for health services research (Nivel) and specialized in the area of human resources for health. The main projects he leads concern the labour market, work and education in health. This includes how institutional reforms, organizational development, task delegation and substitution change job structures and the work of healthcare professionals. From a policy perspective, he evaluates how healthcare policy and management – in particular (strategic) health workforce planning – can improve the alignment between healthcare demands and the critical supply of human resources for health. Since 2017, Ronald is endowed professor in health workforce and organisation studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Sociology.

Sabrina Montante was appointed Senior Advisor for EU Affairs of the leading technical-scientific body of the Italian National Health Service, Istituto Superiore di Sanità in April 2016. She is a Brussels based senior professional working in the EU Public Health policy field and EU Policies, Strategies and Funding on Health research and innovation She has worked in International and EU organizations, research entities, national and regional offices so far and has more than ten years experience in public policy, multi level governance and programme management. She is currently member of the coordinating team of the project TO REACH funded by the European Commission and whose objective is to advance both the current knowledge and the Member states cooperation on health systems and health services research. Sabrina earned a Master of Laws degree from University of Bologna and a Project and Programme Management Graduate degree from Boston University. She is currently enrolled in a Public Health Programme at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Sarah Rozenblum is a French PhD Student in Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan. She is working on several research projects contrasting the American and European responses to COVID-19. She is also investigating health information technology (HiT) politics and medical devices regulation in Europe and in the US. She is especially interested in the use of public health agencies and expertise as well as the production of health norms in times of crisis.

Scott L. Greer, Ph.D, a political scientist, is Professor of Health Management and Policy, Global Public Health, and Political Science (by courtesy) at the University of Michigan and is also Senior Expert Advisor on Health Governance for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

He researches the politics of health policies, with a special focus on the politics and policies of the European Union and the impact of federalism on health care. Before coming to Michigan, he taught at University College London. He has published over fifty book chapters and articles in journals including the British Medical Journal, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, and Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Silvia Romeo is working as Project Manager at ThinkYoung, a Brussels-based think tank focusing on young people. Further to a ThinkYoung’s research on the Youth Vaccine Perception, Silvia is managing a project to engage and inform young people about this significant public health issue. In fact, ThinkYoung built the Young Coalition for Prevention and Vaccination (YC4PV) in January 2019 which is composed of 30 young HCPs from more than 15 EU member states. The YC4PV presented in January 2020 a Manifesto with actions in the field of immunization addressed to the EU Institutions.

Moreover, Silvia is currently representing ThinkYoung within the Coalition for Vaccination convened by the European Commission to bring together European associations of healthcare workers to commit to delivering accurate information to the public, combating myths and exchanging best practice.

Silvia holds a Double Degree Masters in Politics and International Relations from the LUISS University in Rome and from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

Dr Simon B. Drysdale is a Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases (PID) at St. George’s University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and St. George’s, University of London, UK. He graduated from St. George’s Hospital Medical School in 2003, undertook a PhD at King’s College London from 2008‑2011  and completed his postgraduate diploma in PID at the University of Oxford in 2016. He received the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Young Investigator award in 2010 and a prestigious Advances Immunization Technologies (ADITEC) Fellowship to attend the 18th Advanced Course of Vaccinology (ADVAC) in Annecy, France in 2017.

Dr Drysdale’s main research interest is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other respiratory virus infections. He is particularly interested in understanding the host susceptibility to RSV, but also in the management of RSV infection and associated health economics and the development of treatments and immunisations/vaccines, which are currently lacking.

He is an investigator on the European Union/Innovative Medicines Initiative (EU/IMI) funded ‘Respiratory Syncytial Virus Consortium in Europe’ (RESCEU) project, a large European‑wide collaboration of researchers interested in RSV infection. The aim of the clinical studies is to identify biomarkers that will predict RSV disease severity or sequelae and improve the understanding of RSV epidemiology. Dr Drysdale has also been an investigator on several industry‑funded clinical trials relating to RSV treatments or prophylactic agents. In addition to respiratory viral infections, Dr Drysdale is also interested in antimicrobial stewardship and was a member of the Antimicrobial, Resistance and Prescribing in European Children/Global Antimicrobial Resistance, Prescribing and Efficacy among neonates and Children (ARPEC/GARPEC) collaboration from the outset, contributing data for several publications.

On October 12th, 2019, Dr Drysdale chaired the ‘5th workshop on Paediatric Virology’ organized by the Paediatric Virology Study Group (PVSG) (35) and his plenary lecture will focus on the new advances and challenges on the management of RSV infection in children. During the ‘5th workshop on Paediatric Virology’, Dr Drysdale received the PVSG’s ‘2019 Paediatric Virology Award’ for his outstanding academic contribution in the field of paediatric viral infectious diseases.

Dr Simon Nadel is a consultant and honorary reader in paediatric intensive care at St Mary’s Hospital and Imperial College London. He became a consultant in 1994, having completed hsi training in paediatric infectious disease at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and paediatric intensive care training at Great Ormond Street and St Mary’s.

Dr Nadel holds a major clinical and research interest into life-threatening infection in children, and has been involved in many studies examining the susceptibility, treatment and outcome of infections such as meningitis and septicaemia.

Stephen Wright’s professional career has been as an economist and policy analyst in energy industries, banking, health, academia and consultancy. From 1987 to 2007, Steve was in the European Investment Bank, working on various sectors including energy, industry, transport, solid waste, health and education. For the last two areas, he established and ran for a decade the development of the Bank’s sector policy, and the associated project appraisal for lending. After leaving the EIB, Steve set up a research and strategic advisory organization (“ECHAA”) to engage with government, business and academic partners in health sector infrastructure and services. Subsequently, with colleagues, he established INTEGRATE, which led to an EU policy initiative (High Level Task Force on European Social Infrastructure). His principal professional involvement now is in academia (honorary post in the Bartlett School, University College London) and consultancy, mainly in health policy and finance – clients include WHO, World Bank, EIB, EU Commission and various governments in emerging and developed countries. While at the EIB, Steve was on the Steering Committee of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and was a co-editor and co-author there of two books on hospitals. He has produced many papers and book chapters on health care planning, finance and PPP. There has been a recent book on hospitals and health systems. He speaks regularly on these subjects in conferences and other fora.

Tim Wilsdon focuses on projects involving the pharmaceuticals sector and the retail financial services market. As a vice president in CRA’s London office, Mr. Wilsdon is responsible for leading many pharmaceuticals projects in Europe. He commonly talks at European conferences on issues to do with pricing and reimbursement and the economics of innovation.

Recently he has completed studies for PhRMA, LIF, and PIASA on how pharmaceutical markets could be reformed to work more efficiently. Previously, he was responsible for managing an assignment for the European Commission determining whether there was a global crisis in innovation. He has worked on a series of global pharmaceutical projects, recent examples include projects investigating the potential for launching a new Alzheimers and arthritis product and the likely impact of bio-similars in the growth hormone market. He managed an ex-post assessment of launch strategy for a cardiovascular product in the UK, Germany, Belgium, and the Nordic countries, and he led CRA’s European efforts to support global launches in hypertension and antibiotics. Mr. Wilsdon has managed a series of policy projects in the pharmaceuticals sector, including the development of a quantitative model on parallel trade in Europe and numerous projects for the UK’s Department of Health assessing the return on capital, the return on sales, and comparing the PPRS to other European regulatory schemes.

Mr. Wilsdon also focuses on projects in the financial services sector. He is responsible for CRA’s work in retail financial services in the London office and leads much of the team’s quantitative economics. His experience includes leading a numbers of major studies on behalf of the Financial Services Authority into the regulation of wholesales insurance and advice on packaged investment products. He was also responsible for significant assignments for the Association of British Insurers and the European Commission as well as leading insurance companies and fund managers.

Usman joined FIPRA International as a senior advisor for EU health policy in May 2020, having most recently worked in Brussels as executive director of the European

Health Management Association and subsequently the European Patients Forum. He has undertaken a range of health consultancy projects in Europe the USA and China.

· A health policy and management professional with more than 25 years’ executive-level experience within the public, private and not for profit sectors, Usman spent over a decade working in academia, before moving into health and social care consulting in 2000. As managing director of Matrix Insight until 2012, he led a consultancy team of 30 in delivering impact assessments and related research studies for the European Commission and other related government bodies.

· Usman has held a number of high profile non-executive positions in health and social care and currently holds visiting academic positions at George Washington University and New York University (London). Usman holds a PhD from Sheffield University and a BA (Hons) Economics and Politics from London Metropolitan.

Wilm Quentin is a senior research fellow at the Department of Health Care Management at Technische Universität Berlin. Wilm is associate editor of the Journal “Health Policy”, and coordinating the Health Reform Monitor section of the WHO European Observatory’s Health System and Policy Monitor network in that journal. He has been a consultant for international Organisations (WHO EURO, WHO AFRO, World Bank), national governments (e.g. Slowenia, Belgium) and other actors (national health insurance in Poland and South Korea). Wilm is teaching at the department on “Health Systems: Goals, Functions, Actors” and at the École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP) on the module “Management & Health Policy”. Wilm received the degree of “Dr. med” in 2010 and the German degree of “Privatdozent” (formal lecturer qualification) in 2017. He is a medical doctor and holds an MSc in Health Policy, Planning & Financing (HPPF) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the London School of Economics (LSE). He studied medicine and political sciences in Würzburg, Munich, Madrid, Leipzig and Marburg, where he graduated in 2007. He worked as a research assistant at the department of Health Economics of the University of Leipzig and was a visiting fellow at the Institut National de Santé Publique in Abidjan.