Keynote Speakers
Calvin Mak
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr Calvin Mak is a consultant neurosurgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong and is the Clinical Associate Professor (Honorary) of the Department of Surgery at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
His main clinical interest is both endoscopic and complex skull base surgery. Dr Mak performed the first endoscopic transorbital surgery for brain tumor in Hong Kong and has organized dissection courses on endoscopic transorbital surgery. He has been invited as faculty and instructor for various international skull base courses and meetings.
Apart from regular publications, he is co-editor of a multidisciplinary skull base textbook, author of book chapters, and serves as editor and reviewer for various journals and currently serves as Vice President of Hong Kong Neurosurgical Society, First Vice-President of Hong Kong Neuro-oncology Society, Executive Board member of the Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons, delegates to Executive Committee of AASNS and WFNS, council member of the China Greater Bay Area Neurosurgical Alliance.
He is passionate about integrating innovative technology into medical services. He is the Cluster Coordinator of Information Technology and Information Systems of Kowloon Central Cluster (KCC), chair of the KCC Innovation Research Committee and KCC Smart Hospital Management Committee. His team developed the first Hospital Command Centre in Hong Kong, which helped the hospitals combat the COVID-19 crisis and pioneered the adoption of 5G technology in clinical application. He also conducted research on artificial intelligence applications in brain imaging, clinical prediction, surgical robots and LLM application in healthcare.
Dr. Calvin Mak was awarded as the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Hong Kong in 2022 and received Outstanding Team Awards (Team Leader) and Young Achiever Award of the Hospital Authority. He currently also serves on various statutory boards and advisory committees for the HKSAR Government.
Chung-mau Lo
Secretary for Health, Health Bureau Hong Kong
Professor Chung-mau Lo was appointed Secretary for Health on 1 July 2022. Before joining the Government, he was Hospital Chief Executive at The University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, Chair of Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgery at The University of Hong Kong and Director of Liver Transplantation Centre at Queen Mary Hospital.
Professor Lo has devoted himself to clinical work, teaching and scientific research in the field of hepatobiliary surgery for more than three decades. He is internationally renowned for his expertise in hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation. He has published over 600 original articles in refereed international journals and his H-index is 94. His pioneering work in adult right lobe living donor liver transplantation has revolutionised the practice of liver transplant world-wide and has put Hong Kong on the world map of liver transplant. He and his team were awarded China’s top national honour of First-class State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 2005.
He was the President of the International Liver Transplantation Society and the International Society for Digestive Surgery. He has served in the editorial board of many prestigious journals, including the American Journal of Transplantation, Liver Transplantation, Surgery and the Annals of Surgery. He has been elected as an Honorary Fellow of the American Surgical Association, the American College of Surgeons, and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland as well as an Honorary Member of the European Surgical Association.
Professor Lo served as the Hospital Chief Executive of The University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital from November 2016 to June 2022. Under the “One Country, Two Systems” strategy, he has actively leveraged the advantages of Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross-border collaboration to advocate “Green Healthcare Reform ” in public hospitals, and to promote medical integration in the Greater Bay Area. Under his leadership, the Hospital became the youngest High-level Hospital of Guangdong Province in 2018 and received Shenzhen Municipal City Mayor’s Quality Gold Award in 2020. The Hospital has been selected as a National High-Quality Development Hospital in 2021.
Erwin Loh
Goulburn Valley Health, Australia
Professor Erwin Loh is President Elect of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators and Chief Medical Officer at Goulburn Valley Health, a public regional health service in Victoria. Prior to that, he was national Chief Medical Officer and Group General Manager Clinical Governance for St Vincent’s Health Australia, the nation’s largest not-for-profit health and aged care provider, including 6 public hospitals, 10 private hospitals and 23 aged care facilities. Before that, he was the Chief Medical Officer of Monash Health, Victoria’s largest health service, where he worked for ten years. And before that he was the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for three years. And immediately prior to that, he worked as a full-time lawyer at Sparke Helmore for two years.
He is qualified in both medicine and law, with general and specialist registration as a medical practitioner (medical administration specialty) and is a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia. He also has an MBA, Master of Health Service Management, and PhD.
He is currently a director on the board of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators and the Presbyterian Ladies’ College. He has previously been a director on the boards of St Vincent’s Institute, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Monash Health Research Precinct Pty Ltd, Australian Medical Association (Victoria) and Law Institute of Victoria. He is a Graduate and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
He is Professor at Monash University, where he leads the Clinical Leadership and Management Unit at the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation. He is Honorary Clinical Professor with the title of Professor at the Department of Medical Education, University of Melbourne. He is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University at the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research.
He teaches and carries out research in health law, health management and clinical leadership. He has been an invited speaker at local and international conferences, published on health law, medical management, and health technology, and is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, with an interest in medical futurology.
He received the Distinguished Fellow Award from RACMA in 2017 for “commitment to governance, research and publication”.
Jason Leitch
Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Scotland
Jason is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
From January 2015 to May 2024 Jason was The National Clinical Director for the Scottish Government. He worked for Government from 2007 as the National Clinical Lead for safety and subsequently, for Quality.
The National Clinical Director is responsible for quality in the health and social care system, including patient safety and person-centred care, NHS planning, and implementing quality improvement methods across the government and the broader public sector.
He was appointed CBE in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
He was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2022, a rare accolade for a non US citizen.
He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee and a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
He was a 2005-06 Quality Improvement Fellow at IHI.
Jason is a non-executive Board member of the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, a Board member of The Nazareth Trust which runs an acute hospital providing care in Northern Israel and the West Bank and a trustee of the Indian Rural Evangelical Fellowship (UK) which runs a children’s’ home and schools in southeast India.
He qualified as a dentist in 1991 and was a clinical academic and Consultant Oral Surgeon in Glasgow. He has a doctorate from the University of Glasgow, a Masters in Public Health from Harvard and is a fellow of the three UK surgical Royal Colleges.
He is an internationally recognised speaker and adviser on health and care improvement, public health and has advised countries all over the world.
Joanna Pang
Chief Medical Information Officer, Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr. Joanna PANG is the Chief Medical Informatics Officer of the Information Technology and Health Informatics Division at the Hospital Authority (HA), overseeing the development strategies and directions of various clinical IT systems in HA. As an Emergency Medicine Specialist, Dr. Pang believes clinicians should always uphold a patient-oriented value when delivering patient care professionally. She is responsible for coordinating and developing the technology strategy of the Clinical Management System (CMS), health care digital transformation and innovative technology applications, to support the overall development direction and service planning of the Hospital Authority. She also leads the medical informatics teams to assist the Health Bureau in promoting the Public-Private Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS) and the development of clinical information system of Department of Health. Through collaborating with clinicians, IT experts, executives and patients, she embraces innovative IT initiatives with data driven approaches to create new and enhanced healthcare service delivery models.
Joseph Sung
NanYang Technological University, Singapore
Professor Joseph J.Y. Sung, a distinguished medical researcher, earned his MB BS from The University of Hong Kong in 1983, later obtaining a PhD in biomedical sciences from the University of Calgary and an MD from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). With fellowships from esteemed medical institutions worldwide, he is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Eurasian Academy of Sciences, and a Founding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong (ASHK).
Renowned in gastroenterology, Professor Sung’s seminal work includes proving the relationship between H. Pylori and peptic ulcer diseases. He pioneered antibiotic treatments for H. Pylori infection and innovative endoscopic procedures for ulcer bleeding, transforming global gastroenterological practices. His research now extends to the gut microbiome and AI in clinical medicine.
Professor Sung led groundbreaking colorectal cancer screening research in the Asia-Pacific, earning recognition like the Laurel Award from the Prevent Cancer Foundation (2008) and the Marshall and Warren Lecture Award (2009). Notably, he spearheaded efforts against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, recognized as an “Asian Hero” by Time Magazine.
Acknowledged with numerous awards, including the Silver Bauhinia Star (2004) and the World Outstanding Chinese Award (2013), Professor Sung’s contributions are acclaimed locally and internationally. He has authored over 1000 scientific articles and edited numerous medical textbooks, cementing his legacy in medical academia.
Lee Chien Earn
Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer, SingHealth, Singapore
Prof Lee, a Public Health physician by training, is currently the Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer, Regional Health System, SingHealth that seeks to enable the population in Eastern Singapore to keep well, get well and live well. He also Chairs the Planning Committee for the upcoming Eastern General and Community Hospitals. He was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Changi General Hospital, a 1000 bed acute teaching hospital. Prior appointments included senior leadership positions in the Ministry of Health Singapore where he was involved in the strategic development and improvement of healthcare services as well as health regulation and finance. Prof Lee is currently a Clinical Professor with the Duke-NUS Medical School and Adjunct Professor in the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He was also a member of international committees such as International Steering Committee, WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety; Steering Committee, Asia-Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies; Joint Commission International Standards Advisory Panel. Prof Lee co-edited Singapore’s Health Care System: What 50 Years Have Achieved (2015) and contributed the chapter on Strategies for Health Services in the Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health (6th edition).
Maureen Bisognano
President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), USA
Maureen Bisognano is President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), previously served as IHI’s President and CEO for five years, after serving as Executive Vice President and COO for 15 years. She is a prominent authority on improving health care systems, whose expertise has been recognized by her elected membership to the National Academy of Medicine (IOM), among other distinctions.
Ms. Bisognano advises health care leaders around the world on quality improvement and is a tireless advocate for change and is a Board member of the global Nursing Now campaign.
Tony Ko
Chief Executive, Hospital Authority, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong
Dr Tony Ko graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 1990. Dr Tony Ko is a physician by background and a specialist in geriatric medicine. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA). Dr Ko moved from clinical medicine to health services management in 2008 and served under various management offices in the HA Head Office until the appointment to Hospital Chief Executive of Pok Oi Hospital and Cluster Chief Executive of New Territories West Cluster in 2012 and 2014 respectively. He was then appointed as the Director of Cluster Services in 2018 prior to the appointment to his current position in August 2019. Dr Ko is now leading a workforce of about 90 000, and managing 43 hospitals and institutes to deliver public healthcare services in Hong Kong and serving our citizens.
Other Speakers
Christina Maw
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr Christina MAW is currently the Chief Manager (Transformation Services) of HA Head Office, responsible for overseeing the planning, implementation and review of public-private-partnership projects of HA. She is also supporting the Strategic Purchasing Office of the Health Bureau on public-private-partnership initiatives. Dr MAW is a Specialist in Public Health Medicine. Before taking up the current post, Dr MAW was the Hospital Chief Executive of Grantham Hospital & Tung Wah Hospital, and previously working as the Chief Manager in the HA Head Office responsible for the planning and implementation of elderly, rehabilitation services, palliative care and primary care services.
David Sun
Hospital Authority Hong Kong
David is a Neurosurgeon by training and is currently the Head of Hospital Authority Academy in Hong Kong. He was the Deputy Chief Hospital Executive of Princess Margaret Hospital and North Lantau Hospital, and the Hospital Chief Executive of North District Hospital in 2016 and 2018 respectively. Before becoming a full-time administrator, he contributed to various professional training curriculum and programmes design. He remains a strong advocator for multi-disciplinary simulation training to promote team work, especially for patient engagement and safety culture. He is also interested in developing innovative and digital learning platforms.
Fiona Herco
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Australia
Fiona holds over 20 years experience as a health service manager. She has led organisation-wide initiatives and programs including Improvement and Redesign, Business Planning and Culture Transformation. Fiona held a variety of roles at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and North Western Mental Health, one of Australia’s major tertiary health services. In her role as Chief of Staff, Office of the Chief Executive, she held oversight and progression of key strategic healthcare partnerships with a wide array of organisations including private, public, not-for-profit and community services. As a Principal Advisor within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Fiona supported the development of a 20-year strategy for the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct. Her areas of passion are cantered around social justice, particularly in the area of homelessness.
Göran Henriks
Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation, Qulturum, Sweden
Göran Henriks has been Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation at The Qulturum in the County Council of Jönköping, Sweden, since 1997. Qulturum is a centre for quality, leadership and management development for the employees in the County and also for health care on a regional and national level.
Göran has nearly forty years’ experience of management in the Swedish Health Care system. He is a member of the Jönköping County Council top management and Strategic Group. The county are ranked among the best in Swedish care with regards to patient satisfaction, access, clinical performance, safety and costs.
Göran is a senior fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and is the chair of the Strategic Committee of the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare.
Jeffrey Lai
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr Jeffrey Lai is a specialist in Emergency Medicine. He has been working in Accident and Emergency Departments for more than 20 years in Hong Kong. Jeffrey also holds a Master in Public Administration from the University of Hong Kong. He is currently working as Chief Manager of the Quality and Standards Department in the Hospital Authority. He has been leading his team to establish quality standards for HA hospitals, including credentialing, informed consent, waiting times for outpatient services and elective services. His office is also responsible to plan, organize and implement hospital accreditation for HA hospitals.
Kai-Ming Chow
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr. Chow is a graduate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is now the Chief of Service in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Prince of Wales Hospital. Dr. Chow obtained the Croucher Foundation Fellowship and had worked in the Artificial Cells and Organs Research Centre at McGill University, Montreal. Dr. Chow has combined his position as nephrologist with that of honorary teaching staff in the Prince of Wales Hospital. He is actively involved in student teaching, and works as Deputy Service Director (Quality & Safety) at the Prince of Wales Hospital. Dr. Chow has published more than 290 Indexed publications in peer review journals, over 110 of them being the first author. As of January 2024, his H-index is 54.
Karen Tam
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Ms. Karen TAM is a senior clinical psychologist and the head of Oasis – Center for Personal Growth and Crisis Intervention under the Corporate Clinical Psychology Services, Hospital Authority (HA). She is leading the development and delivery of psychological services and related mental health promotion campaign for staff across clusters and hospitals in HA, with the objective of enhancing staff’s psychological wellbeing and cultivating a caring culture within the institution. In her clinical practice, Ms. Tam is experienced in providing various evidence-based treatments and related training courses to support staff facing psychological distress or critical incidents (e.g. workplace violence, sudden death).
Larry Lee
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr Larry Lee is currently the Chief Manager, Cluster Performance, Hospital Authority Head Office (HAHO) with an emergency physician background. Dr Lee accomplished his basic medical qualification as well as his internship training in Sydney before he started his emergency medicine training in Hong Kong in 1998. Dr Lee attained his specialist status in 2004 followed by fruitful administrative exposures before and after his appointment as associate consultant in 2008. In 2016, Dr Lee participated in the commissioning of Tin Shui Wai Hospital (TSWH) and further appointed as the deputy hospital chief executive who contributed the service implementation of this 300-bed hospital. Adjunct with his participation in handling COVID-19 outbreak, he took up managerial roles as Chief Manager in HAHO who responsible for cluster performance and operation services.
Raymond Cheung
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr. Raymond Cheung is currently the Chief Manager (Patient Safety & Risk Management), Hospital Authority. He has worked as Service Director (Quality & Safety) in Kowloon West Cluster and Deputy Hospital Chief Executive (Quality & Performance) in Princess Margaret Hospital. Dr. Cheung is a specialist in Critical Care Medicine and has completed master degree in Science in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Over the years, he had led multiple projects related to quality improvement and workflow reengineering at hospital and cluster levels.
Stephanie Easthope
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Australia
Stephanie is a Project Director for IHI and is currently working with the Victorian Department of Health on the Timely Emergency Care Collaborative. Stephanie has worked in service design and improvement for more than 20 years, and through this time has completed a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, the IHI Improvement Advisor Program, IHI Innovation College, and Lean Coach (Cardiff University) qualifications. She has worked across the NZ health sector as a Principal consultant, as a Design Lead at the New Zealand (NZ) Accident Compensation Corporation, and as a improvement manager and faculty at Ko Awatea, a healthcare innovation and improvement centre in Auckland. She has supported seven District Health Boards in NZ to improve patient flow and has delivered improvement science training and coaching for leaders and teams across the health sector.
Tse Man Li
Hong Kong Poison Centre, Hong Kong
Dr Tse is a clinical toxicologist and an emergency physician in Hong Kong. He has a keen interest in the safety of Chinese medicine(CM) and has been involved in the development of quality and safety policies for the management of herbs in HA tripartite CM clinics. Since 2014, he serves as the co-chairman of the Expert Panel on Herb Safety for the Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine (ICWM) programme. In 2023, the ICWM Treatment Safety Centre was established under the Hong Kong Poison Control Centre to focus the effort in HA and to collaborate with external stakeholders to advance the science and art of ICWM safety. Dr Tse is an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Hong Kong Institute of Integrative Medicine, CUHK and a member of the Chinese Medicine Development Committee of HKSAR.
T Y Chan
Hospital Authority, Hong Kong
Dr Chan Tak Yeung graduated from the University of Hong Kong and completed his specialist training in Geriatric Medicine and Internal Medicine at Kwong Wah Hospital. Currently, he is Consultant in charge of Geriatric Unit and also Deputy Chief of Service(Training) in the Department of Medicine and Geriatrics of Kwong Wah Hospital. Dr Chan is also the Chairman of Specialty Board in Geriatric Medicine in Hong Kong College of Physicians and Co-Chairman of Geriatric Subcommittee in Hospital Authority. He is also Honorary Clinical Associate Professors in the Faculty of Medicine of HKU and CUHK.