SPEAKERS 2021

Alexander Micallef has worked in Mater Dei Hospitalin Malta for the past 16 years, 9 years as a staff nurse and 7 years as a charge nurse. He has a Bachelor degree un Nursing, a Masters degree in Health Services Management and a Masters degree in Executive Business Administration. He his currently reading for a PhD in Health Services Management.

Ana Gama is a researcher at NOVA National School of Public Health, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ENSP-UNL). She has a PhD in International Health and a Master Degree in Community Psychology. She has been working as researcher in several national and international projects combining quantitative and qualitative methods, community-based participatory research and implementation research approaches to investigate health of vulnerable populations, such as migrant groups. Her main fields of research have been public health, health promotion and disease prevention, access and use of health services for prevention, diagnosis and care. She has published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals and co-authored book chapters and books.

Anam Ahmed has a background in the medical sciences with a strong interest in creating and facilitating bridges between health sciences and the practical field. She works as a research consultant at Panaxea and is specialized in health services research. Panaxea is a consultancy organisation in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) that supports informed decision-making concerning healthcare innovations. Anam is also doing her PhD-research at the department of Primary and Community Care at Radboudumc (Nijmegen, the Netherlands). Her PhD is based on two projects commissioned by the National Health Care Institute and focuses on the effectiveness of integrated, person-centred care for vulnerable groups. In order to investigate this complex healthcare intervention she uses realist research, a theory-driven approach to find an answer on what works, for whom, why, and in what circumstances.

Dr. Andrea Brambilla is an architect who holds a PhD in Architecture Built environment Construction engineering (DABC) at Politecnico di Milano. He is active in the Design & Health Lab with researches about evidence-based tools for health systems quality assessment and improvement. He is also Visiting PhD at Chalmers University of Technology, Center for Healthcare Architecture with IDEA League grant. Dr. Brambilla is author of several publication in scientific journals, speaker in international conferences and lecturer in under and post-graduate classes about the relationship between Built Environment and Health Systems, Sustainable Hospital Design and Urban Public Health.

Andrea Schweiger is a Scientific Researcher at the Karl Landsteiner Institute for Hospital Organisation in Vienna and a doctoral student in Advanced Business Administration at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria). Additionally, she studied psychology at the University of Klagenfurt and is a clinical and health psychologist.

Since 2015 she is working on several projects in health economics to improve structures, processes, and outcomes of health organisations, e. g. cultural changes and quality improvement, patient safety and multidisciplinary teamwork. Currently, she focuses on health services research in cancer care to analyse the role and impact of multidisciplinary tumour boards at the Medical University of Vienna, enhancing patient outcomes and considering patient perspectives in clinical decision making.

As a health services researcher, Anne desires to study the current evolutions in health care delivery and services, using mostly qualitative methods. She has 8 years experience in health systems research, currently working as senior researcher and associate professor at the French School of Public Health.

Her research has been focused on the implementation of payment reforms for healthcare organizations (hospital, rehabilitation services, telehealth platforms) and has been engaged in various evaluation programs on care coordination programs, new quality indicators, etc.

She holds a MSc in Management at EM Lyon, a Master of Public Health from the French School of Public Health and a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Paris Sorbonne. Originally from France, she has studied, lived and worked in the UK, US and Spain

Anneli Hujala works as a senior researcher at the Department of Health and Social Management in the University of Eastern Finland. Her research focuses on integrated care and cross-boundary collaboration in the context of people with multiple complex problems.

Annika Bengts is a Doctoral Candidate from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management from Aalto University, Finland. She focuses her research on multi-provider environments and business ecosystems in healthcare.

Anu Vehkamäki is graduating as an M.Sc. from Aalto University. She has explored the academic world as a research assistant for several years in various faculties and received multiple stipends for her study efforts. She has also gained international study experience at the National University of Singapore. Anu has focused her studies on researching knowledge and business networks. This gained expertise she is now applying to the healthcare environment.

Bart Noort graduated at the University of Groningen in Life, Science and Technology, with Biomedical Science as major and a minor on Public Administration. In 2014 he started his PhD at the University of Groningen on healthcare purchasing, for which he visited England and Sweden for a health system comparative case study. He was furthermore extensively involved in setting-up and evaluating the COPD coaching project together with a health insurer, four hospitals and several other involved parties and professionals. Bart visited the IPSERA, EurOMA, EHMA, POMS and Gastein Forum conferences where he presented his work. In 2019 he received the Karolinska Best PhD Thesis Award at the EHMA conference in Helsinki, based on an early draft of his thesis.
On 17 September 2020 Bart defended his dissertation, titled ‘The healthcare purchaser as a care chain orchestrator’. He currently works as a postdoctoral researcher on logistics of medical mobility devices.

Bianca Duran (MA) is a Research Technician within the Department of Public Health, Babes-Bolyai University, working on healthcare management, health workforce, policy implementation and health promotion. Her current focus lies on strengthening the mother and the child healthcare system in Romania.

Ms. Duran has completed her education in public and healthcare management with a bachelor’s degree in Public Health Services and Policies and currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree in Healthcare Management at James Lind Institute in Geneva and at Uninettuno International Telematic University of Rome. She is a former speaker of the International Network for Health Workforce and Education 2021 conference, formerly held in Dublin. Currently, Ms. Duran is working within the Center for Health Workforce and Policy.

Birgit Sandu is the European Projects Manager at the Assembly of European Regions, and holds a MSc in European Public Policy from UCL. She works with regional authorities across Europe to improve and innovative the design and implementation of policies through capacity-building actions and transfer of knowledge. She has been working with healthcare authorities from 9 European Regions in the context of the SCIROCCO Exchange project supporting them in the adoption and scaling-up of integrated care through the development and implementation of personalised knowledge transfer programmes.

Bronagh McGuckin is a Dental Core Trainee (DCT) working in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Altnagelvin Hospital, Derry. She graduated with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery with Honours from Queen’s University Belfast, secured Membership to the Faculty of Dental Surgery (MFDS) from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow and was awarded a PgCert in Medical Education from Newcastle University. Whilst working as a General Professional Trainee (GPT) at Newcastle Dental Hospital, she was involved in a research project applying health economic principles to the provision of NHS Dental Services in England.

Doctor of Social Sciences at Paris Descartes, professor in the Department of Public Health of the Faculty of Nursing Sciences of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Clarissa is currently a researcher at EHESP. Expert in the field of sociology of health and qualitative research methods, she has conducted researches in health management, in particular in the territorial organization of care pathways.

Cordula Wagner (PhD, physiotherapist, sociologist) is Executive Director of the Netherlands Institute of Health Services Research (Nivel) in Utrecht and works as a professor of patient safety at VU University / Amsterdam University Medical Center in Amsterdam. She is also head of the research center ‘Safety 4 Patients’, a collaboration of Amsterdam Public Health research institute (APH) and Nivel.

For the last 20 years Cordula has been involved in a substantial number of projects focussing on a) the implementation of quality systems among healthcare institutions and professionals, b) the evaluation of national quality programs and more specific quality improvement activities such as guidelines, team-training and break through projects, c) the relation between quality systems, care process and clinical outcomes, and d) risk management and patient safety. The research takes place in various health care fields, e.g. hospitals, nursing homes, primary care and mental health care organisations. She has also participated in a number of European projects focussing on quality and patient safety.

Cristina Mendes Santos, MSc, female, is a PhD student in Dynamics of Health and Welfare at Linköping University and Nova University Lisbon and a researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS. Her current research focuses on self-care programs in oncology, more specifically, on internet-delivered interventions aiming at improving psychosocial outcomes in cancer survivors. She has a background in Clinical Psychology and holds a master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from University of Porto. Her master focused on the assessment of health-related quality of life in colorectal cancer patients. She has a strong track record in coordinating oncology clinical trials at IPO-Porto and is a member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association working group on Psychology and eHealth.

Professor Damian Eisenghower Greaves currently lectures in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, St. George’s University.

His educational and professional qualifications include a PH.D in Health Services Management & Policy, two Master of Science Degrees – one in Public Health and one in Social Sciences, and a Bachelor’s in History & Sociology with Education (with Hons.).

Professor Greaves was a former Parliamentarian and Minister of Government of Saint Lucia between 1997-2009, having served as Minister for Community Development, Culture, Local Government, Cooperatives and Ecclesiastical Affairs from 1997-2001, and Minister for Health, Human Services, Family Affairs and Gender relations from 2001-2006.

He is currently a board member of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), Chair of the Grenada National Chronic Non-Communicable Disease Commission, and member of the Advisory Committee on National Health Insurance in Grenada.

Professor Greaves served as a member of the Grenada Cabinet appointed Preparatory Committee to consider the establishment of The Grenada National Reparations Commission. He now serves as Advisor to this Commission.

He is the author of several publications on health and related areas in international journals.

Daniele Bellavia is a research collaborator in the Center for Health Economics, Social and Health Care Management at LIUC Business School since January 2020, after having obtained his master’s degree in Management Engineering at LIUC – Cattaneo University in December 2019.

During the degree course, he first deepened the issues related to business organization and later took the specialization in Health Care System Management, where he acquired skills on the management of companies in the health sector.

His research interests include management issues in the healthcare context (with the application of techniques such as Activity-based Costing, Business Process Improvement as well as Health Technology Assessment) with a particular focus on organizational and economic impact.

Dorine is a PhD candidate at both the Leiden University Medical Center and the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of the Leiden University. The focus of her doctoral research is on the implementation of Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC). Her background in Health Policy Management made her especially interested in approaching healthcare from a management perspective. In her PhD trajectory she therefore combines a healthcare perspective with a governance (or management) perspective to study VBHC. She is mainly interested in the organizational- and team factors that influence the intended interprofessional collaboration in VBHC-teams. Furthermore, she investigates if and how change management perspectives could provide insights in evaluating the implementation of VBHC.

With her research she wants to increase knowledge regarding how VBHC should implemented in addition to what should be implemented and why.

Dr. Estelle Baurès (PhD, HDR) is Sustainability and Social Responsibility Officer in EHESP School of public health. She has a PhD in environmental health and works on the resilience of the health system to environmental change. She coordinates the “ChanCES – climate change, transitions and health” skills set, implemented for the training of all the School’s learners. Previously, project manager at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, she became aware of Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility and then trained at the Collège des hautes études en développement durable in Britany, France. She is a member of the board of directors of the Collectif pour l’intégration du développement durable et de la responsabilité sociétale dans l’enseignement supérieur (CIRSES).

Ester Cardinaal studied private law and criminal law at Utrecht University. Initially, she held mainly legal commercial positions. After that she held various managerial positions. Amongst which head of legal affairs of a Dutch health insurance company.

Since 2011 she has been working at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

First as manager of the Dutch Knowledge Center for Chronic Fatigue, later as managing director of the Department of Rehabilitation and since 2019 as managing director for the departments Operating Rooms and Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine.

Given her fascination with the managerial aspects of an academic medical center, she decided to pursue a PhD on this topic in 2018. In doing so, she aims to provide insight into and contribute to the improvement of healthcare organization.

As a health systems researcher, Eva desires to find and implement safe and sustainable healthcare delivery models globally through co-creation and smart technologies and digital solutions.

She has 15 years experience in health systems reseach, currently working as senior reseacher in Gravitate Health project led by Univesity of Oslo. She is also an associate professor working on task shifting, digital health, ethics in AI and digital health literacy at the University of South- East Norway. Her research has been focused on person centred care, digital health, patient safety, health technology assessment and quality of life. She teaches Public Health at the Medical Faculty, University in Maribor and is Public Health delegate – Emergency Response Unit with the Norwegian Red Cross.

Eva serves as a Board member of Polytekniske Forening- Helse, Women in Global Health Norway and is a member of the Expert Council at the Slovenian Digital Health Innovation Lab.

She holds an MBA in Healthcare Management and a PhD in Health Sciences. Originally from Slovenia, she has studied, lived and worked in Austria, Japan, Finland, Spain, Argentina, Syria and Norway.

She believes that knowledge transfer, capacity building, motivation and empowerment through eduction represent a cornerstone for improving the society, therefore, she founded SanAstra Foundation, dedicated to improve digital health literacy.

Apart from the healthcare expertise, Eva is passionate about the sustainable development and the SDG’s, in particular SDG 5, Gender Equality. As the President of Professional Women’s Network Norway, she is contributing to raising awareness about gender balanced leadership and opportunities for empowering female professionals.

Fabrizio Ruffini is a statistician, he studied at University La Sapienza in Rome where he obtained a degree in Statistics Sciences. He works for the Hospital of Perugia, since 2005, where he is currently head of management control from 2016. For the last 16 years, Fabrizio has been involved in a substantial number of projects, in particular he set up and implemented corporate budgeting process, he developed reporting model, he has done health analyzes, he studied corporate lean organization in surgery rooms, he partecipated at standard costs study in healthcare and lastly he’s monitoring performance measures of the Hospital of Perugia constatly. Since 2017 he developed a dashboard system for top management and middle management for data analysis through business intelligence and data visualization tools. Currently Fabrizio is developing a system for the monitoring of each hospitalization in the hospital, also he is elaborating on a model for the health forecasts in the Hospital of Perugia.

Francesca Donofrio is Phd student in Business Administration at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy). She has a degree in Economics and Finance and a Master’s degree in Global marketing, communication and made in Italy. Her research interests are in the areas of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, integrated reporting and non-financial information, gender medicine, smart technologies and artificial intelligence. She is ad hoc reviewer for Corporate Governance Emerald.

Grazia Dicuonzo is Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), where she teaches Financial Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis and IAS/IFRS. She has a Ph.D. in Business Administration and she is eligible to Full Professor of Business Administration with (Italian) National Scientific Qualification. She is a Member of Editorial Board of “International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism” Journal. She is a member of the EFRAG Secretariat for the Project Task Force on European sustainability reporting standards (PTF-ESRS). Her research interests are in the areas of Integrated Reporting and Non-Financial Information, Clinical risk management, Smart technologies and Financial Accounting. She is ad-hoc reviewer for some journal, such as Management Decision and Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management.

Isabel Farina is currently PhD candidate at Politecnico of Milan, with an interdisciplinary programme between Management Engineering and Design. Her research focuses on Social Prescribing as a community-asset based model of care, with a special attention on children and youth wellbeing. Her background in medical anthropology, combined with her past work experience in Service Design, made her PhD trajectory interested in approaching Social Prescribing with a multidisciplinary eye, looking for participatory methods and transferability of the model from UK to Italy.

Dr. Iseult Browne graduated from Trinity College Dublin Medical School in 2015. Her interest in Oncology was piqued while on a summer elective in The Christie Hospital UK. She was accepted onto the highly prestigious Royal College of Physicians Ireland medical oncology training scheme in 2019, which she is in her final year of at present. Her specialities of interest are breast cancer, gynae-oncology, and onco-genetics, and she has just completed a postgraduate diploma in Cancer Genetics. She has a passion for research and has presented at a number of national and international conferences to date.

She has a particular interest in health economics which she hopes to intricately link into her future work and indeed decision making.

Iseult is currently doing an MSc in Diagnostics and Precision Medicine. This is to enable her to both understand and better utilise the proactive early identification and highly targeted tools that are now becoming available.

She is keen to ensure that she combines absolute patient centricity with continuously understanding how newly evolving technology and methods can lead to vastly improved patient outcomes.

Graduated from Zagreb School of Medicine in 2012, received PhD in 2016 and MHA in 2021. For his projects received Dean’s and Rector’s Award. Youngest winner of New Investigator Award, given by European Calcified Tissue Society. He received Dean’s Award for highest scientific productivity in his PhD class. Author or co-author of more than 20 articles published in CC, international patent and 4 book chapters cited more than 650 times.

He was responsible for several research projects at School of Medicine, University of Zagreb and postdoctoral fellow at International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste. He was Chief Executive Officer at second largest Children`s Hospital in Croatia. Currently is Assistant Professor at University North and senior scientist at Laboratory for Mineralized Tissues.

As the Director General of Health Assessment Europe (HAE) and Executive Director of International Accreditation at Accreditation Canada (AC), Katerina Tarasova pairs innovation and performance excellence to drive global cooperation.

With 17 years of experience in international development, strategic planning and health systems strengthening, Katerina has a proven track record for building lasting partnerships – which have helped advance quality and patient safety in more than 35 countries.

Drawing from direct experience in business and humanitarian settings in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia, she has informed the development and promotion of people-centred programs and services, contributing to HAE’s and AC’s growing reach and impact.

In recent years, she was responsible for conceptualizing national-level projects supporting healthcare assessment and policy implementation. She has also collaborated with European Commission, PAHO, World Bank and others to mobilize international projects focused on healthcare, education, and socio-economic development.

Katerina is a member of the Board for the Canada-Arab Business Council as well as a Committee Member for the International Advisory Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Canada. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs and a Diploma in European Integration from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Kendra is currently a PhD Candidate at University College London. Her research focuses on global medicine and health policy. Having grown up in America, Kendra has a particular interest in cultural influences on health policy decision-making. She hopes to refine the existing resource allocation process in the US to create more affordable and accessible healthcare for US citizens. In doing so, she is examining other countries policies and cultural influence on resource allocation practices.

Dr Kinga Zdunek is a senior researcher and teacher at Medical University of Lublin in Public Health Department. Her research focuses on social and health issues, with a particular interest in health policy and international health.

Dr Zdunek’s recent research, which was performed within MOCHA (Horizon 2020) project, was devoted to the analysis of contextual determinants of child health policy at European level. Additionally, she was involved in the assessment of the impact of evidence based solutions on the implementation of innovative models of child health care in Europe. Her research interests reflect her professional background and education as Master of Sociology and PhD in Health Sciences.

Dr Jacopo Fagherazzi MD, has been a resident in Public Health and Preventive Medicine in the Health Direction of the University Hospital of Verona, Italy, since 2019, dealing mainly with patient’s surgical pathway and, since February 2020, being employed in the management of the COVID19 emergency and in the application of health surveillance protocols to hospital personnel.

Flight surgeon of the Italian Air Force holding a Private Pilot License, specialized in cardiology at Padua University and currently assigned to the NATO Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine for multinational medical interoperability. As a medical officer, he previously served as a base physician at the Aerospace Operations Command in Poggio Renatico AFB (Ferrara, ITA) and supported operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Kuwait, Lebanon and Iraq, deploying with both regular and special forces. He also participated in numerous national, international and allied exercises where both legacy and innovative healthcare support concepts have been executed or tested.

Joana Faro is hospital management consultant dedicated to the implementation and development of an information system for clinical services and adequate support to the Decentralized Forecast Management model. Responsible for collecting, processing and disseminating information to analyze the effectiveness of hospital activities and their productivity.

Joana Seringa is a PhD student at National School of Public Health, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. Holds a master’s degree in health management, and is graduated in nursing, with a postgraduate degree in management control and corporate finance.

Presently, is the manager of the operating rooms at Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central.

Her current research focuses on Patient Reported Experiences and Outcome Measures.

Her main scientific areas of interest concern global and digital health; value based healthcare; and financing and organizational models.

João André Santos, is currently Chief Audit Executive in a Public Portuguese Hospital, he is graduated in Economics at Universidade de Coimbra and holds a specialization in Hospital Administration at Nova – National School of Public Health, Public Health Research Center, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

João Victor Rocha is a researcher at National School of Public Health in Portugal, and a last year-PhD Candidate at NOVA University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Linköping University (Sweden). His PhD research focused on the use of Hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions to assess and compare access, quality and performance of primary health care between countries. As a researcher his current work focuses on various fields, including COVID-19 (governmental responses and impacts in health care delivery services); Long COVID (analysis of risk factors); and Patient Reported Experiences and Outcome Measures (as an indicator of quality of Primary Health Care). His background is Actuarial Sciences and Administration (with focus on human resources), with both the Bachelor and Master obtained in Brazil. For six years he worked on projects financed by the Ministry of Health of Brazil to assess health situation and public health policies there, before moving to Europe to pursue his PhD.

Jon Txarramendieta holds an Engineering in Industrial Organization at the University of Deusto (2010) and a Master degree in Health Management at Deusto Business School (2015). In 2017, he obtained the Expert Course in Health Services and Chronic Diseases Research. He has experience in the implementation of health services in national and European project context. Since 2016 he works as Project Manager at Kronikgune, where he has been involved in several EUfunded projects including Mastermind, ACT@Scale, SCIROCCO, SCIROCCO Exchange and the JA CHRODIS Plus. Currently is the Project Manager at the Coordination team of the Joint Action JADECARE.

Dr. Justin Aunger is a Research Fellow in the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham. He is an early career researcher working on a realist synthesis and evaluation of partnering as a strategy for improvement in NHS providers. He recently completed his PhD at the School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham and is an expert in applied behavioural psychology at individual and organisational levels.

Lucrezia Bianca Ferrario is a research collaborator in the Centre for Health Economics, Social and Health Care Management – LIUC Business School, and she is one of the Coordinator of the Healthcare Datascience Lab – Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC University, providing the economic vision for the application of economic and financial tools useful in the definition of the correct cost of healthcare technologies.

She is currently a lecturer in the School of Engineering at Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC University (Castellanza, Varese, Italy), for the course titled “Technology Assessment and Datascience in Healthcare”. She also teaches in Masters in Healthcare Management Course and in the Health Technology Assessment training course at Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC University, with a specific focus of all the aspects related to the definition of the organizational and financial impacts related to healthcare innovations in the clinical practice.

Her main scientific areas of interests concern all the methods and tools related to the evaluation of healthcare technologies, health economics, HTA, Multi Criteria Decision Analysis – MCDA, and the application of the methodology of benchmarking and Activity Based Costing within the healthcare sector, with more than 20 papers published and with several attendances at National and International Conferences on these topics.

Lukas Kerschbaumer is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. His background is in Educational Science and Social and Political Theory He was working at the Institute for Employment Research Nuremberg (IAB) (the research institute of the Federal Employment Agency Germany) as researcher at the Panel Study “Labor Market and Social Security” and at the department “Joblessness and Social Inclusion”. Currently he is finishing his PhD on labor market inclusion of long-term unemployed against the odds. He works now at the Center for Social & Health Innovation in Innsbruck (Tyrol/Austria) and is involved in poverty research, qualitative methods and network research as well as the topic of (Labor market)Integration and (social)participation of disadvantaged groups depending on social benefits during the pandemic. Furthermore, his interest lies in social contexts and their influence on health and health competencies as in community based approaches in handling the pandemic.

Mandar Dabhilkar is Associate Professor of Operations Management at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University.

Maria de Guadalupe Comparada Almeida is full Professor in the Department of Health, Occupational Therapy, Polytechnic Institute of Beja Portugal.

Maria Maia holds a Ph.D. in Technology Assessment (TA) from the Univ. Nova de Lisboa (FCT-UNL), in Portugal and a Master in Administration and Management of Health Services from Universidade de Évora (UE) and Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa (ESTeSL), in Portugal. With a background in health sciences (Radiology), since 2013 she is a researcher in the field of TA at the Institute of Technology and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), were she is member of the Research group “Life, Innovation, Health, and Technology“. At the present, Maria is leading ITAS work in two projects related to AI applied in health and collaborating in several other projects as well. She is an elected member of the board of the Society for the Study of New and Emerging Technologies (S.NET) (since 2018), an editorial board member of the Journal of Responsible Technology (Elsevier), and a founder member of the Observatory of Technology Assessment (OAT) of CICS.NOVA Portugal (2015), where she is also an associated research member.

Among her main fields of interest and research are citizen and stakeholders’ perspectives on new technologies, concepts and practices of Technology Assessment (TA), scientific developments and practices of responsible innovation (RI) ,TA in health, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare settings, decision-making process , values and ethical principles and guidelines for innovation and R&D, Radiology and mixed-methods research.

Maria Picco is a Master student in Management Engineering at Politecnico of Milan (Italy), with a specialization in Sustainable Operations Management and Social Innovation. She is running a master thesis regarding the evolution of health professionals’ role in the home care setting. During her studies, she was involved in a project work that aimed at understanding the current care pathways of Heart Failure and identifying the most promising organizational and technological innovations for the management of HF patients.

Marija Jevtic is full professor at University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Medicine, specialist in Hygiene (Public Health) at the Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina with subspecialisation in medical ecology; research collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Research Centre on Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health; associate member of the Academy of Medical Sciences Serbian Medical Society; group analytic therapist and System Psychodynamic Organizational Consultant; EU Climate Pact Ambassador.

She has 25 years experience in the research and education process and advocacy in public health and environment and health. Field of interest and work: public health, environment and health, SDGa, climate change, disaster andhealth, migration, mental health, school health, food safety, nutrition, health management, reproductive and sexual health, group psychotherapy, organizational consulting. As a university professor she have been involved in different curricula development in Faculty of Medicine University of Novi Sad in the field of Public Health, Nursing, Disaster medicine, Nutrition, Medical ecology, Hygiene. She is also professor at Faculty of Technical Sciences University of Novi Sad (undergraduate and postgraduate studies) in the field of disaster and vulnerability, public health and emergencies, mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies).

She has been Director of Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina; Head of the Department of Hygiene at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad; Assistant minister Ministry of Health RS.

Mieke Rijken is a Senior Researcher at Nivel (Netherlands institute for health services research) and part-time Professor Health and Social Services at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research focuses on the needs for care and support of people with (multiple) chronic conditions, older citizens and cancer survivors, and the development and implementation of person-centred integrated care models to meet their needs.

Milena Vasic is Professor of Public Health at the Institute of Public Health of Serbia.

Milica Paut Kusturica is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Medicine and specialist of pharmacoeconomics and pharmaceutical legislation. As a strong research professional with a PhD in Clinical Medicine she is mostly focused on pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics, public health and social pharmacy. She has published more than 20 papers in highly impacted international journals and has presented at various international conferences including International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), European Drug Utilization Research Group (EuroDURG) and The European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT).

Graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1997 and Specialist in Hospital Pharmacy in 2001, she has been working in Hospital Pharmacy at Barreiro Montijo Hospital Center since 1997. Member of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Commission since 1997 and the Infection Control Commission, current GCL-PPCIRA since 1998. In this context, was co-responsible between 2015 and 2018 of the Coordination of the Stop Infection Project in CHBM under the responsibility of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Institute for Health Improvement. Fun Accumulations of Coordination of the Working Group on Wound Treatment of CHBM, E.P.E. and Member of the Working Group on Artificial Nutrition. Appointed Medication Manager since 2012.

She has been invited professor at Portuguese Red Cross College of Nursing (ESECVP) in the discipline of Pharmacology since 2019.

Niki Medendorp is Account manager at Netherlands Heart Registration.

Nour Alrabie (Pharm.D., Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor of Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at IDRAC Business School (France). She is also an affiliate researcher at VU Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Queen’s University Belfast (UK). Her research deals with the emergence of collective actions and digital innovation, mainly in the setting of healthcare. She presented her work in the most prestigious conferences in her fields: European Academy of Management, European Group for Organizational Studies, European Marketing Academy, and European Health Management Association. She was invited by several institutions around the world: Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), University of Oulu (Finland), and Universidad de la Salle (Colombia). Her latest publication, which was published in Health Service Management Research, investigates the emergence of collective actions among healthcare practitioners, in French rural areas.

Oskar Roemeling is Assistant Professor of Innovation Management & Strategy and Fellow of the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health.

Patrícia Alves Rocha holds a master’s degree in Health Evidence and Decision and is graduated in economics.

Presently, she is the manager of the intensive care and emergency Unit at Centro Hospitalar São Joao, one of the biggest hospitals in Portugal.

Her current research focuses on  the study of the health services in the productive, organizational and distributive aspects and the impact of patients’ health status, namely the assessment of quality of the services provided, , access to health care and economical aspect of equity in care-giving and distribution of resources.

Paula Madaleno is a medical master in occupational health and with an MBA in health system management. Madaleno is also doing her Ph.D. in International Health Policies at NOVA University of Lisbon. She has been working in Angola for more than 20 years, focusing on the health system strengthening, health workforce, policy implementation, and health promotion, with the Ministry of Health, National Institute of Public Health, USAID, PMI, World Bank, and Global Fund. She is an editorial board member of the Risco Zero Magazine (1st journal on occupational health in Angola) and a member of the Occupational Health Research group of the European Association of Public Health (EUPHA). Her current focus is on strengthening effective public policies to protect workers’ health. The main fields of interest and research are occupational health literacy, professional risk perception, professional risk management, health workforce, health promotion, and occupational disease prevention.

Paulien Vermunt is a senior researcher at Vilans, the national Centre of Expertise for long-term care in the Netherlands. In 2012, she obtained a PhD in the field of type 2 diabetes prevention in Dutch primary care. Afterwarts, she started working as a consultant guiding the implementation of person-centred care in the nursing home sector. Her current work focuses on improving the quality of elderly care in the Netherlands. In the past two years, Paulien was project leader of the evaluation of ‘Dignity and pride’, a governmental support program for quality improvement in Dutch nursing homes.

Mrs. Petra Kokko is a Development Manager at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and a doctoral student in local public economics in Tampere University. Her thesis addresses the paradigm shift towards value-based healthcare, and it’s impacts on the health system at micro, meso and macro levels and hybrid governance in the context of healthcare. Petra has a comprehensive background in the health care sector; first as a nurse in operating rooms and after completing the master’s degree in Business Administration (in 2003, University of Vaasa), as an accounting and finance expert in hospitals and other social and health care organizations.

Raquel Chantre is a Hospital Manager at Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Central (CHULC), with current responsibilities over the Pharmacy Department. She has a postgraduate degree in Hospital Administration from UNL/ENSP and over 8 years of experience in the Health sector, having worked in various roles in both public and private sectors. Her focus action points include centralizing drug procurement processes, improving data management analyses, developing a paper free culture and implementing outpatient pharmacy proximity programs.

Riikka Riihimies is a general practitioner, clinical instructor of general medicine, and PhD student in Tampere University, Finland. Her PhD research focuses on validation of Navigator, which is a digital service for recognizing different groups of patients with similar needs in health care. She is interested in developing patient—centered care and digital health services.

Robin Peeters is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Health Services Research, Maastricht University. She has a background in Medicine and Healthcare Policy, Innovation, and Management. Already during her Medical education, she developed a particular interest in organizing health care more efficiently and effectively. Her current PhD research, therefore, focuses on inter-organizational networks in which different types of stakeholders from various sectors collaborate to achieve specific goals such as decreasing costs or increasing the quality of health care in their region. She is particularly interested in the effectiveness of this type of network: how to conceptualize and operationalize the term ‘network effectiveness’ and how these networks can contribute to the major challenges that health systems face.

Dr Róisín O’Donovan has recently completed a PhD examining psychological safety in healthcare teams. She has been working at the UCD Centre for Research, Education and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS) at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems in University College Dublin for the past 5 years. Her PhD research focused on understanding and improving psychological safety in healthcare teams and was funded under the Irish Research Council Employment Based Postgraduate Programme and the Ireland East Hospital Group.

Rose Geurten is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Health Services Research, Maastricht University. After a bachelor in Medical Sciences and Engineering, she finished a master’s in Healthcare Policy, Innovation, and Management. In the field of the latter, her PhD research specifically addresses care for type 2 diabetes in the Netherlands. Using health insurance data, she has focused on analyzing the whole Dutch type 2 diabetes population and the distribution of their care throughout the health system. As this identified a high level of dispersion in care use, she hopes to delineate specific type 2 diabetes subgroups with similar resource use and to better understand their courses of disease to enable evidence-based tailoring and improvement of care in future research

Rui Dang is currently a senior lecturer in economics at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and a guest professor in demographic economics at Gdansk University of Technology, Poland. His research interests are health economics, health policy, population economics , applied microeconometrics and quantitative methods in health care management and clinical research.

He serves as a member of the scientific advisory committee(SAC) of the EHMA-European Health Management Association, a Global Labor Organization fellow, and a member of the Global Health Competencies Sub-Commitee and SDG Tashkforce at CUGH-Consortium of Universities of Global Health. He is also serving as an associate editor for IJTACH-International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Concerning policy advisory roles, he has been included in the COVID-19 Expert Database – ICS/ICT extension under the Australia Academy of Science. Previously he was teachint at the University of Information Science and Technology, St.Paul the Apostle“, in the Republic of North Macedonia, and at department of economics at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. He was working as a Postdoc at Dartmouth College, USA, and a research assistant at RWI-Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, Germany. In July 2015, he successfully defended my PhD dissertation in Economics at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

Sanna Lakoma, MD, MPH, PhD student, University of Helsinki.

Sheila Mc Crory is Head Medical Social Worker at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, Ireland. She has over 30 years experience in Medical Social Work. One of the priority clinical areas of her department is Child Protection. Sheila recently completed a MSc in Leadership in Healthcare with the Hse Leadership Academy and University College Cork. Her Master’s Dissertation focused on leadership competencies used by medical social workers in managing Child Protection cases as part of the multi-disciplinary team.

Sofie Van Steendam is a pharmacist born and raised in Leuven, Belgium. She has two Master’s degrees obtained from the KU Leuven: Pharmaceutical Care and Healthcare Management and Policy. In her spare time, she enjoys baking, hiking, and spending time with friends and family. Sofie started her career at Amgen in 2019 as a Sr. QA Associate, and will join Daiichi Sankyo as of September 2021 as a Medical Information Manager.

Tania Gaspar is Director of the Psychology and Education Sciences Institute at Lusiada University.

Vania Silverio is currently involved in scientifically innovative and challenging R&D projects combining nanotechnology with simulation tools for the design, fabrication, integration and test of microfluidic devices and sensors (INESC MN, www.inesc-mn.pt) towards Miniaturized Laboratories and Organs-On-Chip. Additionally, she is engaged on the definition of ISO Standards and Processes for Microfluidics [ISO/TC 48/WG 3; CEN/TC 332/WG 7;  www.MFMET.eu; microfluidics-association.org].

She is author of several research publications in the areas of fluid dynamics at the microscale and microfluidics device fabrication. She combines her research with advanced training, teaching and theses supervision at the Master and PhD level at Instituto Superior Técnico, ULisboa (http://tecnico.ulisboa.pt), where she is an Invited Assistant Professor (Microfluidics course; Micro and Nanofabrication Techniques course).

Silverio is regular Peer Reviewer of several Scientific Journals and is frequently involved in the organization of International Meetings on Micro and Nanotechnology. She is member of The Microfluidics Association, IEEE Society USA, IOP, Portuguese Physical Society and European Physical Society. She holds a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering (Tecnico, ULisboa) and a Licenciatura degree in Technological Chemistry (5 years, FCUL, ULisboa).

Vassiliki Costarelli is an Associate Professor in Eating Behaviour and Health, in the Department of Economics & Sustainable Development at Harokopio University, Athens, Greece. She is a Dietician and a Registered Nutritionist (R.Nutr.) She is an active member of the Human Ecology Laboratory, of the above Department and her research interests are focusing on nutrition and dietary behaviour, health and nutrition literacy, diet and well-being, nutrition in vulnerable groups and food security, childhood obesity, nutrition and cancer and sustainable diets. She has 122 publications out of which, 68 articles in peer reviewed journals and numerous citations. She has an h-index of 21. Dr Costarelli is also a reviewer to more than 30 scientific journals and was the coordinator to a number of funded Greek and European research projects.

As Health Assessment Europe’s Development Lead, Yuliya Shcherbina works with healthcare providers to facilitate the implementation of accreditation and quality improvement programs from Health Assessment Europe (HAE) and their affiliates, Accreditation Canada (AC) and Health Standards Organization (HSO). Yuliya has more than 8 years of experience in international development, working on a variety of health quality improvement, relationship building, and communications projects. Since joining HAE four years ago, she has initiated and overseen the implementation of several accreditation projects by healthcare organizations located primarily in Southern Europe.

Prior to her current role, Yuliya also worked for the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation, developing and managing relationship building projects between clinicians, scientists and the community. In this role, Yuliya also worked with patients to facilitate knowledge building on advancements in stem cell research and the impact of clinical trials on patient care, both domestically and internationally.

In addition to working in various EU countries and North America, Yuliya is fluent in several languages including English, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian. Yuliya Shcherbina holds a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations.