Keynote Speakers
Anne-Miek Vroom
Director, IKONE; Netherlands
Anne-Miek Vroom is a pioneering medical sociologist and founding director of IKONE, a non-profit foundation dedicated to advancing human-centered transformation in healthcare. With over 20 years of experience in driving change alongside patients and professionals, and her personal journey with the rare disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta, she fosters meaningful partnerships with patients and healthcare professionals. Supported by her dedicated team of experts by experience, Anne-Miek develops and implements strategies that harness patient narratives to generate valuable insights. This ‘insightship’ strengthens scientific understanding and fuels transformation in healthcare and beyond.
Central to IKONE’s mission is IKOcreate, a learning platform and toolbox that empowers organizations to seamlessly integrate patient co-creation into their processes for deeper insights and lasting impact. Guided by Albert Camus’ words, “You cannot create experience, you must undergo it,” Anne-Miek champions inclusive transformation and is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences worldwide.
Donald M. Berwick
President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Donald M. Berwick is one of the leading scholars, teachers, and advocates in the world for the continual improvement of health care systems. He is a pediatrician, and a longstanding member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He founded and led the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, now the leading global nonprofit organization in its field. He was appointed by President Obama as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he served in 2010 and 2011. He has counselled governments, clinical leaders, and executives in dozens of nations. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Philosophical Society. He has received numerous awards, including the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the Award of Honor of the American Hospital Association, and the Gustav Leinhard Award from the Institute of Medicine. For his work with the British National Health Service, in 2005 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Honourary Knight Commander of the British Empire, the highest honor awarded by the UK to a non-British subject.
Manal Moussane
Trainee Doctor and Former United Nations Youth Representative; Netherlands
Manal Moussane (25) is a former United Nations Youth Representative, with a focus on intergenerational collaboration and meaningful youth participation. She completed an executive board member program in healthcare governance and currently serves on the Supervisory Board of Save the Children Netherlands, while completing her Master’s degree in medicine. As a Next Generation Keynote Speaker, she shares her insights and experiences in advancing intergenerational collaboration.
Thomas Lee
Internist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Chief Medical Officer to Press Ganey, Inc; USA
Dr. Thomas Lee is an internist who practices at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Chief Medical Officer to Press Ganey, Inc. He became a Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health in 2004. Prior to joining Press Ganey in 2013, Dr. Lee was Network President for Partners Healthcare System, the integrated delivery system founded by Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals.
Dr. Lee has performed research leading to more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and five books, most recently Healthcare’s Path Forward (2023). He is a member of the Board of Directors at Geisinger Health System, and chairs the Board for Geisinger Health Plan. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts, the Board of Directors of HealthLeads, and the Panel of Health Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office. He also serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the New England Journal of Medicine and is Editor in Chief of NEJM Catalyst.
He received his BA from Harvard College (1975) and his MD from Cornell University Medical College (1979), and then trained in internal medicine and then cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received a MSc in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health in 1987.
More keynote speakers to be announced
Other Speakers
Abha Mehndiratta
Faculty, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); India
Abha Mehndiratta is a paediatrician, Improvement Advisor, and IHI faculty. She is also a public health practitioner with a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar. Dr. Mehndiratta coaches quality improvement teams in Southeast Asia and has supported teams in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development, working in India with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Indian Universities to build capacity & institutional mechanisms for using economic evidence for decision-making and the development and implementation of clinical guidelines. Dr. Mehndiratta previously was a Consultant to the World Bank, the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE), and Imperial College London.
Akudo Okereafor
Founder of ABC Parents, Paediatric Specialty Registrar, ABC Parents, North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust; England
I’m a Paediatric Registrar, Founder of ABC Parents Parent Education and Peer Support programme, Quality Improvement Mentor and mum of six. It was by walking in the shoes of my patients and living through the traumatic journey of my brother and sister-in-law that I find myself on my current career path. In just 18 months my family endured stillbirth, seizures, premature birth, and cardiac arrest. These life-changing experiences gave me unique insights into being on the receiving end of NHS care and opened my eyes to gaps, particularly in family-centred care and certain community services. Five years on I lead a parent education and peer support programme based at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust. Commissioned by NCLICS Health Inequalities funding we provide free lifesaving skills, family health education, peer support, breastfeeding drop-ins, fitness workshops and a holistic preventative approach which empowers and supports families who need it most. Based in North London, our coproduced initiative has parents and champions at the heart of what we do.
Alistair Thomson
Senior Consultant, The King's Fund; England
Alistair is an experienced organisational development (OD) practitioner, having been a member of senior leadership teams in the health, education and charity sectors. Previously Alistair worked within the public sector, particularly in local government (social care) and health. He has also worked in the NHS supporting the creation of clinical commissioning groups, and the development of the associated clinical support units. Alistair moved from the NHS to a national charity, where he led on the development of organisational values and a review in organisational culture. Alistair is passionate about OD, with a particular interest and focus on dialogic OD work, organisational culture and group dynamics. He enjoys working with groups solving complex problems that require a deep understanding of relationships and self. Alistair holds a Masters degree in people and organisational development, is a qualified CIPFA accountant and a Fellow of CIPD.
Amar Shah
Chief Quality Officer, East London NHS Foundation Trust; England
Amar is Chief Quality Officer at East London NHS Foundation Trust and has led the Trust’s long-term journey of applying improvement across all areas of the organisation, with demonstrable results. His board role includes quality, performance, strategy, planning and analytics. He is also the first National Clinical Director for Improvement for England, working across the whole NHS to support the greater adoption and embedding of quality improvement.
Amie Shao
Principal, MASS Design Group; USA
Amie Shao is a Principal at MASS Design Group. She champions safe, culturally reverent childbirth spaces, promoting community engagement and awareness of how design affects health outcomes. Blending human-centered practices with evidence-based research, Amie has designed maternal-newborn facilities in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Kenya; evaluated the impact of improved maternity waiting homes in Malawi; worked with Ariadne Labs to investigate how birth spaces influence c-section rates; and coordinated the development of National Health Infrastructure Standards in Liberia. Currently, Amie is collaborating with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement on a toolkit for co-designing safe birth spaces in low and middle-income countries and is designing the Neighborhood Birth Center in Boston. Amie holds a Master of Architecture and a Certificate in Urban Policy and Planning from Princeton University.
Andrea Thoonsen
PhD candidate, Amsterdam UMC; Netherlands
Andrea Thoonsen is a PhD candidate and postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam UMC. She specialized in nationwide health policy implementation, impact evaluation, and system collaboration. Her dissertation focused on national quality recommendations and achieving implementation and impact in clinical practice, with an emphasis on the perspectives and (collective) actions of central guideline organizations such as scientific societies, professional organizations, governmental agencies, and insurers. Currently, she advises municipalities, Regional Public Health Services and insurers on implementing and monitoring of the The Dutch Integral Care Agreement. Additionally, she serves on the executive board of the Amsterdam Center for Implementation Science (AmsCIS).
Andrea X. Cortes Beltan
Improvement Deputy Director, Kings College Hospital; England
Andrea is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in aerospace manufacturing and healthcare. She excels in leading high-performing teams to implement Lean transformation and improvement strategies that enhance safety, quality, and efficiency. Andrea has worked in both the public and private sectors internationally, bringing a diverse and global perspective to her work. She is adept at connecting with people, focusing on the needs and expectations of end users to deliver meaningful results. Andrea has lived in Mexico, the USA, and now resides in the UK. She is passionate about inspiring the next generation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), and has led non-profit international organisations dedicated to this cause. In her personal time, Andrea enjoys solving puzzles, practicing hot yoga, traveling, exploring international gastronomy, and learning about different cultures.
Andrea Waddell
Medical Director - Clinical Informatics & Quality Standards, Waypoint Centre for Mental Health; Canada
Andrea Waddell is the Medical Director for Clinical Informatics & Quality Standards at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. She is an Associate Professor and the co-lead of Psy-QIS, the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry program for Quality Innovation and Safety.
Anette Nilsson
Lead Strategist, Region Jönköping County; Sweden
Anette has been leading transformational improvement work at regional and national level for several years. She is an inspiring leader for change, innovation and population health across sytems.
Angela Zambeaux
Project Director, Europe Region, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); France
Angela G. Zambeaux, Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has managed a wide variety of IHI projects and programs. Since 2013 Angela has managed the Always Events program and contributed to the spread of Always Events across NHS England through the publication of a toolkit and coaching of improvement teams. Angela has worked with The Conversation Project and Conversation Ready projects to help make sure people’s end of life care wishes are expressed and respected. As a Project Director her role includes project design, delivery, and evaluation. As part of IHI’s Europe team, Angela supports the Health Improvement Alliance Europe, a robust network of members working across Europe to improve health and healthcare. Prior to joining IHI, Ms. Zambeaux provided project management support to a small accounting firm and spent a year in France teaching English to elementary school students.
Angelique Weel
Rheumatologist, Maasstadziekenhuis; Netherlands
Rheumatologist, Professor Proof-Driven Value-Creation in Healthcare at Erasmus Universty Rotterdam, co-founder and chair Scientific Board of the Society Personalized Healthcare.
Anita DeHavilland
Quality Improvement Specialist, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust; England
Anita is an experienced Senior Improvement Coach with a vast background in adult nursing, corporate education, and community-based improvement. Leading on and supporting varied initiatives within the organisation, Anita collaborates with health and social care colleagues and partnering organisations at a regional and national level. Anita is impassioned, in ensuring improvement is accessible and straightforward for all, empowering colleagues to initiate, influence and be curious about improvement, whilst collaborating with service users, ensuring their voices are heard.
Anita Rowe
Senior Improvement Advisor, HSCQI, Public Health Agency; Northern Ireland
Dr Anita Rowe is a Senior Improvement Advisor in HSCQI, the improvement hub for health and social care in Northern Ireland. Anita is a speech and language therapist by profession, with over 20 years of clinical and managerial experience in delivering services for children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) in mainstream schools. She is a graduate of the Scottish Improvement Leaders (ScIL) and holds a masters degree in Interprofessional Health and Social Care Management from Queen’s University Belfast. She completed her PhD at Ulster University in 2020, which focused on the development of an intervention to support children with SLCN. Her doctoral research was underpinned by complexity principles, systems thinking and implementation science and Anita is passionate about how these approaches can support vital improvement work in health and care services. She is responsible for the evaluation of HSCQI’s regional improvement programmes and currently leads the HSCQI Scale and Spread Programme for Delivering Value.
Anja Brunsveld-Reinders
Senior Advisor, Evidence Based Practice, Leiden University Medical Center; Netherlands
Anja Brunsveld-Reinders is trained as a nurse and has many years of professional experience as an intensive care nurse. She has been conducting calamity investigations since 2016 and is trained as a safety investigator since 2019. She is currently working as a Senior Advisor Evidence Based Practice in the department of Quality and Patient safety, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. In this position, she supports nurses in conducting research and quality improvement projects and supervises PhD students.
Anne Marie Weggelaar
Endowed Professor, Tilburg University; Netherlands
Anne Marie Weggelaar RN PhD MCM, is an endowed professor Healthcare Innovation and Transformation at Tranzo, Tilburg University in The Netherlands. She is currently studying resilience and complex adaptive systems, among others. She has conducted action research on the National program Time to Connect and has co-led one of twenty Safety II research projects. This specific project focussed nurses’ resilient behavior in mundane practices.
Annemiek Coremans
Born in 1957, I worked as an internal medicine specialist at Bernhoven for 31 years.
The last ten years of my career was also an investigator of calamities in healthcare. Together with a colleague, we investigated the underlying causes of a serious incident in the care in order to learn and improve.
As a hospital, we think this is very important, but it doesn’t benefit the patient much.
When I retired in 2022, I decided to volunteer to guide patients and/or their families who end up in a calamity process.
In 2025 I am doing this for 3 years. Patients have never been before so grateful for anything I did and guiding them gives me great satisfaction.
Annie Laverty
Chief Experience Officer, Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust; England
Appointed as Director of Patient Experience in December 2009, the first post of its kind in the NHS. Within this unique role, Annie strengthened Board accountability and developed the most comprehensive patient experience programme in the NHS. As Northumbria’s Strategic Lead for Quality from 2015, Annie evidences a track record of using data, insight, and technology to support service excellence. Northumbria is one of very few NHS Trusts to achieve a double outstanding rating by the regulators, the Care Quality Commission. Annie is a Health Foundation Generation Q fellow, a pioneering programme, aimed at developing a new generation of skilled and effective leaders in healthcare. In 2022, Annie left Northumbria to take up an executive leadership position within one of the largest NHS Integrated Care Boards in England. More recently she has returned to her roots, joining Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust in February 2024 as their new Chief Experience Officer.
Arie Franx
Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres, Netherlands Ministry of Health, Netherlands Healthcare Institute; Netherlands
Arie Franx (1961) trained at the medical school of the Free University in Amsterdam and specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology in Utrecht and Tilburg, the Netherlands.
He holds a PhD degree of Utrecht University. In 2019 he was appointed at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam on the chair Obstetrics in particular the lifecourse approach of fetal development and maternal health. Arie supervised over 60 PhD students and co-authored over 370 scientific papers and four handbooks. Arie’s h-index is currently 46. His research topics include organisation and quality of health care.
He works on value based health care with the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres, the Ministry of Health and the Netherlands Healthcare Institute and the International Consortium of Health Outcome Measurement (www.ichom.org). Arie is co-founder and co-chairman of the Linnean Initiative (www.linnean.nl), a nationwide multidisciplinary network aiming to accelerate the implementation of value based healthcare in the Netherlands.
Barbara van Leeuwen
Professor, University Medical Centre Groningen; Netherlands
B.L. van Leeuwen, MD, PhD is a professor in surgical oncology with the elderly patient as main interest. She was employed by the Dutch Cancer Foundation 2006-2008 as a clinical and research fellow in “cancer in the elderly”. As such she gained valuable working and research experience in Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden, Whiston Hospital in Liverpool and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, USA. Her clinical work focuses on melanoma, sarcoma and peritoneal disease. She started work in the University Medical Center Groningen in September 2008 and was rewarded a tenure track fellowship by the University.
Since then she has been the primary investigator in several clinical studies. focusing on the elderly cancer patient. Related subjects include: value based healthcare, the decision making process, preoperative risk stratification, the surgery evoked inflammatory response and its detrimental effects, postoperative complications and telemonitoring. With her international consortium CHANGE, she contributes to knowledge necessary to change the healthcare system from disease centered to patient centered. In addition she is a member of the steering committee of the Arts in Health Netherlands alliance that presented a white paper on arts in health in 2024, with contributions of over 200 participants.
Collaborative partners include: LUMC, AMC, MUMC, Prins Claus Conservatorium Groningen, Guildhall school of music and drama, ZIN, NFK, NFU, Menzis, Zilveren Kruis, Hanzehogeschool (University of applied sciences) Groningen.
She is the author of over 160 scientific papers and supervisor of many medical students and phd candidates.
Bas de Vries
Sr. Advisor Quality & Safety, UMC Utrecht; Netherlands
Bas de Vries is a senior advisor and trainer at the Department of Quality & Patient Safety at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht. After years of working as a nurse he switched to education and training. He was involved by the start of Center for Patient Safety at UMC Utrecht. He designed and provided many trainings and courses on Q&S-themes. After years of incident-investigation he shifted his attention to the colleagues who were involved in adverse events and started up the program of peersupport and collegial network for Emergency Dept and ICU’s.
Benna Waites
Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Lead, Improvement Cymru; Wales
Benna has worked in the NHS for 35 years and now works in the National Improvement Team for Wales – Improvement Cymru, alongside her senior management/clinical role in a Health Board.She chaired a national group funded by the Health Foundation to develop thinking and resources around Psychology for Improvement, which brought together expertise from the improvement and psychology communities. She has a passion for improving psychological safety in healthcare to enable more effective improvement efforts and safer, better care and is undertaking a PhD in the field of Psychological Safety. In 2014 she developed a highly successful leadership training programme, Leading People, which is now in its 8th cohort and has led to significant positive change for participants. She co-founded the we resource, compassionpractices.net during the pandemic to enable free access to a range of practices to support compassion in staff teams, and continues to support the global community that has build around this work. She was delighted to work alongside IHI colleagues in delivering the National Safer Care Collaborative in Wales during 2022-3.
Bharathy Kumaravel
Associate Professor in Public Health, Consultant in Public Health Medicine, University of Leicester, Leicestershire County Council; England
Dr Bharathy Kumaravel is an Associate Professor in Public Health in the University of Leicester and a Consultant in Public Health Medicine with Leicestershire County Council, UK. She obtained her MBBS at the University of Madras, India, and holds an MHSc in Community Health and Epidemiology from the University of Toronto, Canada, and a PhD in Medical Education from the University of Leicester, UK. She is the co-chair of Public Health Educators in Medical Schools, a SIG within the Faculty of Public Health. Her clinical work focuses on designing and leading public health interventions around health nequalities and vulnerable communities, health protection, and preventative medicine including screening. She is passionate about clinically integrating Public Health, particularly in relation to health inequalities, into medical education. She has also worked extensively with NHS England to integrate Generalism into postgraduate medical training, so tomorrow’s doctors can understand the health and social care needs of the most vulnerable.
Birgit Hartoft
Patient Safety Advocate, Danish Society for Patient Safety and WHO Patient Safety Champion; Denmark
I am a patient safety advocate for the Danish Society for Patient Safety. In 2006 my husband died prematurely after a series of miscommunications and resulting medical errors. Working at the time in process improvement in an IT company, it felt natural to me to use this experience to help prevent similar adverse events. And so I became a WHO Patients for Patient Safety Champion in 2007.
I use my experience in storytelling, as a jumping off point for debate about the importance of acknowledging human error and learning from it. I volunteer my experience as guest lecturer at junior doctors’ communications courses, various public speaking engagements, and in participation in quality improvement work groups in Denmark. My focus is on patient safety from diagnosis through treatment and care, on quality improvement work in general, and on learning from adverse events in particular. To ensure the best possible outcomes for both patients/carers and healthcare professionals all perspectives must be included in healthcare improvement work.
Bob Klaber
Director of Strategy Research & Innovation, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; England
Bob Klaber is a Consultant General Paediatrician & Director of Strategy, Research & Innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Bob trained as an educationalist alongside his postgraduate paediatric training in London and has a strong interest in individual and systems learning, quality improvement, behavioural insights work, leadership development and kindness. He has completed a mixed methods MD researching leadership approaches in healthcare and is a Professor of Practice (Population Health) at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. Bob is also a member of the NHS Assembly and a trustee at the Nuffield Trust.
Brian Daniels
Chief Executive, Pluto Play Productions; England
Brian Daniels founded Pluto Play Productions as a charity in 1997. He has extensive experience as an Artistic Director in London theatres, including the New End Theatre, Hampstead where he produced more than 200 new plays, musicals and cultural events. Since 2011, he has been writing and staging plays on issues around medical, health and social care and society, inspired by true stories, that have been performed across the UK in venues such as hospitals, hospices, art centres, theatres and at conferences. He has received national awards from the UK Patient Experience Network for three plays and an award from the UK Health Service Journal. He is currently an Ambassador for Doctors in Distress, a UK charity offering advice and help to those working in the medical profession, particularly doctors, who may be suffering extreme stress and/or burn out. Brian wrote a play highlighting this called ‘Beneath The White Coat.’
Cara Evans
Postdoctoral Fellow, Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care and the University of Toronto; Canada
Cara is a postdoctoral fellow at the Waypoint Research Institute and the University of Toronto, funded by a Health System Impact Fellowship through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She holds a PhD in health policy and a Master’s of Science in occupational therapy. Her research interests are in the intersections of health system decision-making and service user and provider experiences, especially in relation to complex mental health needs.
Carolien Wijsman
Internist in geriatric medicine, Saxenburgh; Netherlands
Carolien started her working life as Internist geriatric care and is now working in Saxenburgh as well as in a primary care team.
Caroline Heijckmann
Internist-endocrinologist and Medical Leader, Bernhoven Hospital; The Netherlands
Caroline Heijckmann, MD PhD is an internist-endocrinologist and medical leader quality & safety and works at Bernhoven, a general hospital in the Netherlands.
Caroline is driven by her ambition to further improve the safety culture by collaborating with patients and healthcare professionals. Working to restore trust after a serious incident for patients, their families as well as the healthcare professionals is a key element.
Cheryl Levy
Assistant Improvement Manager, Kings College Hospital; England
Cheryl Levy is the Assistant Improvement Manager within the Quality Improvement (QI) and Innovation team at King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, London. As a focused experience project manager, Cheryl leverages her superpower of connecting with people to drive results. She firmly believes in collaboration across all levels, flattening hierarchies to ensure diverse perspectives contribute to continuous improvements.
Cheryl’s accomplishments include successfully managing the development of an education space for Nurses, Midwives, and AHP. She has also played a key role in improving Covid Swabbing turnaround times. Recently, Cheryl led a Meaningful Involvement project, emphasizing active engagement with patients, carers, and individuals with lived experience as an integral part of QI efforts.
Christian Subbe
Consultant Physician, NHS Wales; Wales
CPS is a Consultant Physician working in Acute Medicine and lecturing at Bangor University. He studied in Germany. He holds an MD in Respiratory Pathophysiology. He trained in England, Germany and Wales and complemented this with work for Médecins Sans Frontières in Angola and fellowships in France and the US. His group published in 2001 one of the globally most influential papers in patient safety on Early Warning Scores (>1000 citations). His research interest remains safety of the deteriorating patient in acute care with over 100 peer reviewed publications. He has lead development of national and international guidelines in the field of patient safety. He has recently completed a Fellowship and PhD in Improvement Science with the Health Foundation and Bangor University to develop the contribution of patients to their own safety while in hospital. He hosts an annual meeting of leading Improvement Scientists from across Europe.
Christine Roach
NHS Wales Self-Management Lead, NHS Executive; Wales
Christine Roach is the Self-Management Programme Lead within NHS Wales Executive (NHSe). Christine has worked within the NHS for 20 years and has held roles in HR, National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare (NLIAH) and Public Health Wales. Christine is a Quality Improvement Advisor and a Master Trainer in Chronic Disease Management. She is responsible for the National Operational Management of the Education Programme for Patients (EPP Cymru) and its derivative programmes supporting NHS Wales. Recently, Christine’s role has developed into a more strategic role by working with colleagues within the NHSe by building self-management into patient pathways. Christine has also submitted an innovative project to develop a National Peer Support Service across NHS Wales (equity) via the Bevan Commission ( Welsh Government Advisory Group).
Colin Barnes
Head of Improvement, Academy of Research and Improvement, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust; England
Colin is Head of Improvement at the Academy of Research and Improvement for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare Foundation NHS trust in the United Kingdom. He oversees the knowledge specialist, clinical audit, service evaluation, quality improvement and researcher development programmes for the Academy.
Before research and improvement, Colin worked for 25 years as a specialist speech and language therapist completing his PhD in 2016 with a mixed methods randomised controlled trial exploring the benefits of brief communication focused CBT for carers of people with dementia. He maintains an interest in dementia carers research and regularly reviews research applications and journal publications in this field. He has over 10 book and peer reviewed publications in this field and previously worked closely with the UK Alzheimer’s society in writing their advice literature.
Colin also works closely with the patient and public participation team at the Academy and the Side-by-Side patient group who regularly co-design and co-present our training programmes.
Corinna Parisi
Improvement Coach, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Corinna Parisi is a Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) where she works with European partners to build their capacity and capabilities in Quality Improvement and improve care quality through results-driven improvement projects. Her current portfolio includes equity and patient safety work within the UK. She received her Bachelor of Art’s from Bates College and a Master’s in Public Health from George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health with a focus on health policy. Prior to joining IHI, Corinna supported clinicians in the United States to implement best practices through Academic Detailing efforts. Patient-centered care, engagement, and advocacy is what matters most to her.
Dayenne Zwaagman
Patient Representative, Society Personalised Healthcare
Dayenne is born with a rare congenital heart disease. Besides her job as advisor, she also is active as a co-founder and board member of Hart4Onderzoek; the only patient driven charity that aims to raise (crowd)funding for scientific research in rare genetic and congenital heart diseases in adults and adolescents. The focus of Hart4Onderzoek lies on small-scale research proposals, projects or/and ideas of young investigators. Patients and researchers cooperate in innovative projects that aim to improve quality of life of patients, and strives to contribute to a more inclusive society.
Dominique Allwood
Chief Medical Officer, UCL Partners; England
Dominique is Director of Population Health at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Chief Medical Officer for UCLPartners. She is also Programme Director for the Leading for Population Health programme at The King’s Fund. Dominique has nearly 20 years’ experience as a doctor, in public health, and health care leadership and management. She has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers, is an Associate Editor of BMJ Leader and an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London. Dominique has a master’s in public health, a master’s in business administration and a certificate in executive education. Alongside directly leading work with an impact on policy and practice, Dominique also supports leaders, organisations and systems to tackle complex challenges around improving population health, reducing inequalities and improving care so it is kinder and more equitable.
Don Goldmann
Chief Scientific Officer, Emeritus, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Dr. Goldmann is an infectious diseases clinician and epidemiologist with experience along the entire translational research pathway, including vaccine development, clinical trials, observational studies, and implementation research. He is an alum of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and helped develop a national healthcare-associated infection surveillance programme. He is Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. As Chief Scientific Officer, Emeritus and Senior Fellow at IHI, he advises on designing and evaluating rigorous programs to improve healthcare quality. He explores innovative in-person and on-line teaching methods. He is lead faculty for a HarvardX MOOC on Practical Improvement Science, as well as Harvard TH Chan credit course on this subject. He founded the ongoing Harvard-Wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship Program. He conceptualized and delivered the Harvard General Education course on “Infectious Diseases, Pandemics, and Social Injustice. He is passionate about equity and population health and enjoys mentoring younger people.
Eleanor Parker
East London NHS Foundation Trust; England
Ellie has been working in the healthcare quality field since 2016. She started her career at the Royal College of Psychiatrists managing national accreditation networks for inpatient mental health services, before joining East London NHS Foundation Trust’s Quality Department where she has been for the last 6 years. She currently leads the Trust’s Quality Assurance team and is also a Quality Improvement Coach. Alongside work, Ellie has recently completed an MSc in Healthcare Leadership focusing her dissertation on the leadership of coproduction with service users and carers.
Emma Robinson
Senior Project Manager, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Emma Robinson is a Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). She’s been with IHI for over five years and worked on the Pursuing Equity team for over two years. Her current portfolio of work includes a three-track Learning Collaborative with Healthy NYC focusing on maternal mortality, preventive care, and behavioral health, as well as an Education and Leadership program funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Before coming to IHI, she completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology and American Ethnic Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. She graduated in 2023 with her Master of Public Health from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. Her graduate thesis focused on arts-based rehabilitative programming for incarcerated youth. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts but enjoys frequently visiting her family in her hometown of Davis, California.
Emma Tonner
Next Generation Advisory Panel - Deputy Chair, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust; England
Emma Tonner completed the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management’s National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow Scheme with the National Institute for Health and Care Research Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre in 2022/23. She continued this role for a further seven months and also gained experience with the Department of Health and Social Care as a Commercial Clinical Trials – Clinical Policy Fellow. Emma has experience in healthcare leadership, systems and policy gained through a number of significant leadership roles. Emma is passionate about sharing her knowledge and empowering healthcare professionals to be change-makers within their systems and communities at all levels; providing them with the skills and voice to achieve this. She champions inclusive leadership opportunities and shares her passion as a healthcare leadership educator and postgraduate lecturer.
Erik Mayer
Clinical Reader, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; England
Erik Mayer is a Clinical Reader at Imperial College London and a Consultant Surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare and the Royal Marsden NHS Trusts. He is Director of the iCARE Secure Data Environment and the Digital Collaboration Space, Paddington Life Sciences.
He is Imperial College Healthcare’s Transformation CCIO (Analytics & Informatics) and chairs the NIHR Imperial Academic Health Science Centre Research Informatics Committee and represents Imperial at the UK Health Data Research Alliance Council. He is Theme Lead in the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (Digital Health) and the NIHR NWL Patient Safety Research Collaborative and is Programme Director for the MSc Health Policy, Centre for Health Policy, Institute of Global Health Innovation.
Erin Leith
Director, Nova Scotia Health; Canada
Erin Leith is Director of Quality Improvement and Safety in NS Health’s Central Zone and provincial lead for Quality Improvement & Culture. Erin has 17 years’ experience leading programs and initiatives designed to spread improvement at scale in health systems by collaborating with leaders from the front line to senior executives to improve care and outcomes. Prior to returning home to Nova Scotia in 2018, Erin was Director of Education and Training at the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement (now Healthcare Excellence Canada) for 11 years, including as the including the prestigious EXTRA Fellowship program, and health system improvement collaboratives designed with provincial, territorial and indigenous partners. Erin is a Registered Nurse, with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. Francis Xavier University, holds a Master of Health Administration from Dalhousie University and is currently participating in the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship Programme.
Einar Hovlid
Director, Knowledge and Analysis, Norwegian Board of Health Supervision; Norway
Einar Hovlid is the director of Knowledge and analysis at the Norwegian Board of Heath Supervision. He has long work experience within healthcare regulation and has done research on how regulation can contribute to improve quality and safety. Hovlid is also a professor at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences where he teaches quality improvement.
Gabriel Cenizal
Quality and Safety Manager, Massachusetts General Hospital; USA
Gabe received his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, Organizational Studies with a minor in Technology Management from the University of California, Davis. He currently works at Massachusetts General Hospital as the Quality & Safety Manager within Mass General for Children. In his role, he promotes a culture of safety focused on continuous improvement by identifying key priority areas of quality and safety for MGfC, as well as implementing projects that advance those priorities. Prior to MGfC, Gabe worked for a number of non-profit organizations performing global and national-level initiatives which include building quality improvement capability of healthcare providers residing in lower/middle-income resourced countries and COVID-19 public health response for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Additionally, he is passionate about advancing health equity, career coaching, mentoring rising professionals, and being involved in Filipino community organizations.
Gareth Taylor
Senior Governance Manager, Elysium Healthcare; England
Gareth Taylor is a Senior Governance Manager At Elysium Healthcare; he leads the regional governance strategy and QI across the services within the Southern region. He is an improvement advisor (IA) from the institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) IA programme. Gareth has over 17 years’ experience in secure mental healthcare in which time has been involved in numerous quality improvement (QI) projects, developing new hospitals & turnaround projects. He is the chair of the Regional Clinical Governance Committee for the Southern region of Elysium and Deputy Chair for the Royal College of Psychiatrists Quality Network Forensic Mental Health Services (QNFMHS) Accreditation Committee. Gareth is also a qualified marine mammal medic with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and is committed to conservation and protection of wildlife.
Göran Henriks
Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation, The Qulturum in the County Council of Jönköping; 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.
Hardeep Singh
Professor of Medicine, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; USA
Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH, Co-Chief, Health Policy, Quality and Informatics Program, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
Hardeep Singh, MD MPH is a Professor of Medicine at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. He leads a portfolio of multidisciplinary patient safety research related to measurement and reduction of diagnostic errors, improving the use health information technology and health system transformation. His research has informed several national and international patient safety initiatives and policy reports, including those by the National Academies, CDC, OECD and the WHO. His contributions include co-developing the “”ONC SAFER Guides”” that provide all US hospitals with recommendations for safe electronic health record use, co-chairing or participating on several national and international panels and workgroups on measuring or improving safety, and developing pragmatic tools and resources to promote patient safety and diagnostic excellence in clinical practice. His more recent contributions include system strategies and policy-level approaches for accelerating climate action and environmental sustainability in healthcare. He has received several prestigious awards for his pioneering work, including the AcademyHealth Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award in 2012, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama in 2014, the VA Health System Impact Award in 2016 and the 2021 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award for Individual Lifetime Achievement.
Harry Coleman
Consultant GUM/HIV, Mortimer Market Centre SHC; England
Harry Coleman is a consultant in GUM/HIV working at Mortimer Market Centre in London. He is clinical lead for PrEP and service for GBMSM.
Helen Bevan
Professor of Practice & Strategic Advisor, Warwick Business School & NHS Horizons; England
Helen Bevan is a globally influential thought leader in large-scale change in health and care, with over three decades of experience in England’s NHS. She has supported leaders in delivering substantial improvements and has worked with organizations in over 30 countries. Helen blends new ideas on change with a proven track record in complex systems. Her approach has been featured in best-sellers like Humanocracy and New Power and highlighted in the Harvard Business Review. Helen understands that effective change now comes from human connection and network influence rather than formal authority. She engages with over a million people monthly through social media, virtual presentations, blogs, and collaborations. Helen is a top influencer in UK healthcare, improvement, nursing, and patient safety worldwide.
Henrietta Hughes
Patient Safety Commissioner; England
Dr Henrietta Hughes OBE started in September 2022 as the first Patient Safety Commissioner, an independent role recommended by the report First Do No Harm. Acting as an independent champion for patients Henrietta leads a drive to improve the safety of medicines and medical devices by ensuring that patient voices are at the heart of the design and delivery of healthcare in England. A practising GP and a member of the Health Honours Committee and the guiding group of the Women’s Health and Care Leaders Network, Henrietta was previously the National Guardian for the NHS and a Medical Director at NHS England. Henrietta has held executive and non-executive roles in the NHS and is Chair of Childhood First, a children’s charity.
Ian Leistikow
Inspector and Professor, Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate / Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management; Netherlands
Ian Leistikow is inspector at the Dutch Health & Youth Care Inspectorate and professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam where he conducts and supervises research into ‘governmental regulation of health and care quality’. He is a non-practicing physician. In 2011 Ian became member of the Program Advisory Committee of the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. Ian is board member of SINC, an international collaboration of European health and care regulators. Ian teaches and publishes about patient safety and the role of regulation. In 2017 CRC Press published his book “Prevention is better than cure”, on learning from adverse events in healthcare.
Jaap Hamming
Professor of Vascular Surgery, Leiden University Medical Center; Netherlands
Jaap F. Hamming is a professor of vascular surgery, helds the chair of the Department of Surgery, Leiden University Medical Center and extensively involved in surgical training and science besides vascular surgical practice.. Previously he has been director of surgical training and held various organizational functions. Besides his research in clinical and translational vascular surgery, he supervises PhD trajectories on quality of care and patient safety. He has been involved and an ambassador for more than 10 years in the development and implementation of S-II and Just Culture in the Netherlands over all medical specialties. This research focusses on developing resilience and team dynamics, in short how professionals can be supported in their work to create a safe environment in every day care.
Jafet Arrieta
Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Jafet Arrieta currently serves as a Vice President for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Jafet leads IHI’s portfolio in the Latin America region and Measurement, Evaluation, Learning & Dissemination (MEL-D). In her role, she supports global partners in the design and implementation of large-scale quality improvement and health system strengthening initiatives and oversees global efforts to advance improvement science through MEL-D activities. Dr. Arrieta has extensive experience in operational, oversight, management, and leadership roles within the areas of public health, quality improvement and health systems strengthening across low-, middle-, and high-resource settings. Dr. Arrieta is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also serves as a Policy Advisor for Partners in Health and is an Associate Faculty of Ariadne Labs. Dr. Arrieta previously served as Director of Operations for Partners In Health Mexico. Dr. Arrieta holds a medical degree from Tecnologico de Monterrey School of Medicine, a Doctorate of Public Health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a Masters of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery degree from Harvard Medical School.
James Hoffman
Senior Vice President for Quality and Safety, Faculty member, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; USA
James M. Hoffman PharmD, MS, is the Senior Vice President for Quality and Safety and a faculty member in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In his role, Dr. Hoffman oversees St. Jude’s quality and safety programs. Before taking on his current role in 2022, he was St. Jude’s Chief Patient Safety Officer for seven years. He helps St. Jude conduct robust improvement projects to improve patient care. He is also part of a research team that works to learn how to make care improvements more quickly across multiple children’s hospitals.
Dr Hoffman was a core member of the team that created St. Jude’s Safe and Sound strategic plan, and he is particularly focused on helping St. Jude become an academic leader in quality, patient safety, and improvement science for children with catastrophic diseases. Through work at St. Jude (PG4KDS
www.stjude.org/pg4kds)and nationally through the Clinical Pharmacogenetic Implementation Consortium (CPIC https://cpicpgx.org), he is devoted to implementing pharmacogenetics as a patient safety strategy.
Jan Willem Weenink
Associate Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Netherlands
Dr Jan-Willem Weenink is an Associate Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, specializing in the regulation of quality and safety in health and social care. He leads and oversees research in these areas and is a faculty member for the Erasmus International Regulator Course. In addition, he serves as the Programme Director for the Master’s in Health Care Management at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management.
Jane O'Hara
Director of Research, The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute, University of Cambridge; England
Professor Jane O’Hara is Director of Research at The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute, at the University of Cambridge. Currently, she leads the Safer Systems, Cultures and Practices theme within the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (running 2023-2028), and a large NIHR-funded programme evaluating the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (May 2022-July 2025), alongside an ongoing quality and safety research portfolio. Jane holds Visiting Professor positions at the University of Leeds, and the SHARE Centre for Resilience in Healthcare at the University of
Stavanger, Norway. She has nearly fifteen years’ experience leading patient safety research, and a further eight years of applied psychological research prior to that. Jane has received funding from the Health Foundation, THIS Institute, the Trondheim Foundation and Research Council of Norway, and the NIHR. Jane has a broad range of research interests including engaging patients and families in care quality and safety; measurement and monitoring of patient safety; improving incident investigation and learning; safety theory and resilient healthcare approaches; co-production; and, quality and safety intervention development and testing.
Jasper Brands
Representative, Metro Mapping Foundation; Netherlands
Jasper Brands is a service designer with 20 years experience designing for healthcare. His drive is to find common ground in complexity through reframing, co-creation and design. Jasper Brands is a representative of the not-for-profit Metro Mapping Foundation.
Jennifer Creese
Lecturer, University of Leicester; England
Dr Jennifer Creese is a social anthropologist with a focus on healthcare, particularly ethnic/minority experiences in health services and health inequalities. She holds a BA in History and a PhD in Social Science from The University of Queensland, Australia, specialising in oral history, social anthropology and ethnography of multiculturalism and minority belonging. She has worked on research around migration experiences, health care resilience, dementia family care and health workforce across the UK, Ireland and Australia. She has a particular interest in intersectionality (ethnicity, religion and gender) and individuals’ experiences of healthcare, both as patients and as clinicians.
Jennifer Malpass
Evaluation Specialist, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare Foundation NHS Trust; England
I am an Evaluation Specialist and the lead for community-based methods at Co-Lab, the Academy of Research & Improvement’s centre for evaluation, training and research for community-driven research and improvement. I work with communities, partners and organisations to facilitate community ownership of research and improvement through peer research. At Co-Lab we strive to make research accessible for all, we support people in our communities to research areas affecting them the most. Working in partnership with people, communities and organisations we try new methods for community-based research and improvement to improve community health and social care.
Jesse Verleije
Quality Coordinator, Academic Psychiatric Centre Duffel (UPCD); Belgium
Jesse has been a Quality Manager at UPCD (academic psychiatric hospital Duffel) since 2021, bringing over a decade of experience in quality management, youth advocacy, and social-profit project management. Before joining UPCD, Jesse served as Director of a youth organization focused on advancing youth participation in national policymaking (2016-2021) and as Quality Manager in the higher education sector (2008-2016).
In his current role, he leverages his expertise in facilitating participatory processes, guiding change, and enabling impactful decision-making to enhance the quality of care for patients, colleagues, families and partners.
Jill Duncan
Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); United States
As a Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Jill oversees IHI’s portfolio of strategic networks. She leads IHI’s US-based Leadership Alliance and is accountable to the success of global teams in catalyzing and accelerating improvement knowledge exchange through robust relationship-based networks across IHI communities. Ms. Duncan is an active partner, facilitator, and advisor to large-scale efforts focused on leadership, workforce well-being, clinical quality improvement, and the development of dynamic learning networks. Her previous IHI responsibilities include daily operations and strategic planning for the IHI Open School, leadership for a number of results-oriented initiatives, and the design and development of workforce development programming. Ms. Duncan draws from her learning as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, quality leader, nurse educator, and front-line care provider.
Jo Wailling
Centre for Restorative Practice, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington; New Zealand
Jo Wailling works at the Centre of Restorative Practice at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. She leads health and disability system research and practice, advising national and international government agencies, researchers, and advocacy groups on restorative initiatives and healthcare safety.
Jo is also a registered nurse and accredited mediator and has previously held clinical, professional, and national leadership roles within the health and disability sectors in the UK and NZ. She co-designed and evaluated New Zealand’s restorative response to surgical mesh harm in partnership with the Ministry of Health and consumer advocates and co-chairs the NZ National Collaborative for Restorative Initiatives in Healthcare. Jo is actively involved in international groups that partner academics, clinicians, and consumers to support the development of resilient healthcare and restorative initiatives. Her research interests include healthcare harm responses, safety systems and realist evaluation.
Joanna Moore
Senior Improvement Advisor, Barts Health NHS Trust; England
Joanna is an AHP by background, with over 16 years clinical experience across mall NHS healthcare settings and in Canada. She is currently a Senior Improvement Advisor working at Barts Health as Programme Lead for Unplanned Care Trustwide and the Northeast London sector. Joanna has lead on the Remote Emergency Access Coordination Hub (REACH) and Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) improvement programmes since 2021.
Joanna is a member of the National @AHPQI Comms Squad with the aim of connecting, sharing and promoting QI throughout the AHP world. She is also a part of the global ‘Kindness Collaborative’ aiming to build ‘Kindness Leaders’ throughout all levels of international healthcare. She is an advocate of the global “What Matters to You?” healthcare movement.
Jonathan Burlison
Director of Improvement Science, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; USA
Jonathan leads the capacity and capability growth and sustained use of rigorous QI at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a specialized hospital in the United States that develops cures for and treats children with catastrophic diseases.
Jonathan Clarke
Assistant Medical Director for Quality Improvement, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board; Wales
Julie Fox
Senior Planner of Patient Experience, University Health Network, Toronto; Canada
Julie Fox is a Registered Nurse with a passion for amplifying patient and caregiver voices. Currently, she is working as a Senior Planner of Patient Experience at the University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With experience in nursing, patient relations, patient safety and quality improvement, Julie offers a unique perspective to her work and collaborates across the organization on projects relating to patient engagement, essential care partner presence, preventable non-physical patient harms, and patient experience measurement strategy.
Julie completed her Bachelors of Science in Nursing at Laurentian University, obtained a Change Management Practitioner certificate in 2015, and is pursuing a Master’s of Science in Health Quality at Queen’s University.
Kathryn Grayling
Director of People, Culture and OD, North East & North Cumbria Integrated Care Board; England
Kathryn is the lead of the NENC learning and improvement community: Boost. She has an unwavering belief that cultures that support people powered change are the catalyst for fostering improvement and innovation. She is dedicated to developing our inclusive learning and improvement community where people from across the NENC system can contribute, develop, and learn together. Kathryn began her career in healthcare over 30 years ago as a paramedic. More recently she has worked regionally and nationally as a catalyst for change and has led several programmes to support learning and improvement around key health and care priorities.
Kathryn Perera
Senior Consultant - Leadership and Organisational Development, The King's Fund; England
Dr Kathryn Perera works in the Leadership and Organisational Development team, where she co-designs and facilitates leadership initiatives with boards, executive teams and organisations, supporting them to work with more intention and impact. She also undertakes learning reviews to support boards and executive teams in making progress on complex, sensitive challenges.
Kathryn joined The King’s Fund after nearly a decade working in senior roles in NHS England, where she led the co-design and implementation of large-scale change initiatives across health and care systems, both in England and internationally. She is a US-UK Fulbright Commission Scholar and long-term collaborator with Professor Marshall Ganz at Harvard University. Through that collaboration, she is a trustee of the Leading Change Network, a global community organising hub, and Act Build Change, a UK-based social enterprise that builds power with people so that they are better able to make positive change in their communities.
Kathryn Turner
Executive Director, Metro North Mental Health; Australia
Dr Kathryn Turner is a Psychiatrist and Executive Director of Metro North Mental Health, a large Mental Health. Alcohol and Other Drug Service in Brisbane, Australia. She has had a longstanding interest in education, training, and continuous improvement of quality and safety in healthcare systems, evaluation, and a focus on culture in the workplace. Dr Turner has been involved in design and implementation of Suicide Prevention frameworks and pathways in her previous and current service and implemented a Restorative Just and Learning Culture framework into the service, providing support for consumers, carers, clinicians and the organization to heal, learn and improve following the loss of a consumer to suicide.
Kaveh Shojania
Professor and Vice Chair (Quality & Innovation), University of Toronto; Canada
Dr. Kaveh Shojania is Professor and Vice Chair (Quality & Innovation) in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr Shojania’ s research has focused on identifying effective strategies for improving patient safety and healthcare quality more generally. He has published approximately 200 papers indexed in Medline, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and the Lancet. Google Scholar lists over 25,000 citations to his work with an h-index of 74. From 2011-2020, Dr Shojania was Editor-in-Chief at BMJ Quality & Safety, during which time the journal’s impact factor rose to consistently rank in the top few spots among the 90+ journals in its category, including not just health care quality, but also health services research, clinical informatics, health policy, and medical education. Currently, he is as an Associate Editor at JAMA Network Open.
Kerseri Scane
Manager, Patient Engagement for Healthcare Improvement, University Health Network; Canada
Kerseri Scane MSc. R. Kin. Manager, Patient Engagement for Healthcare Improvement, University Health Network, Toronto Canada. Kerseri provides leadership within the Patient Experience & Engagement portfolio at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada focusing on learning from patients, families and their experiences by engaging them in organizational planning and decision making. She is committed to ensuring that improvements made in the quality, safety and experience of care are driven by what patients identify as most important. She is passionate about ensuring our healthcare system is moving towards one that embraces collaboration and meaningful partnerships with patients and their caregivers.
Kris Vanhaecht
Full Professor, Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, KU Leuven; Belgium
Kris Vanhaecht is a full professor on quality and patient safety at Leuven University in Belgium. He is an IHI Improvement advisor and ISQUA academy member. On national level, he is the chairman of the board of directors of Sciensano, the National Public Health Institute. He leads improvement programs on quality management systems (www.flaqum.org), care process redesign (www.E-P-A.org), person centred care (www.mangomoment.org) and support systems for second victims (https://cost-ernst.eu/). He has more than 260 published papers with an H-Index of 37. More information via www.krisvanhaecht.be
Kyla Avis
Consultant, Health Quality Council (Saskatchewan); Canada
Kyla Avis is a former Registered Nurse and Principal of KDA Consulting in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Kyla gained experience in the health care system as a nurse working in a variety of clinical settings in Canada as well as community settings in both South Africa and Mozambique. From 2008-2914 Kyla was a Program Director with Health Quality Council (Saskatchewan) overseeing the provincial rollout of the “Releasing Time to Care” initiative.
Since 2014, Kyla has worked as a consultant, helping organizations with strategic planning, facilitation, and coaching. As a certified practitioner of the Lewis Deep Democracy methodology, she guides teams through tension to generate new wisdom for innovation and improvement. Currently, Kyla is focused on systems innovation, exploring non-linear change methodologies for deeper system change. She is core team member of the Systems Innovations Network Health Hub.
Laura Pozzobon
Manager, Quality, Safety & Clinical Adoption, University Health Network; Canada
Laura Pozzobon is a nursing leader and certified health executive who is passionate about improving health care in partnership with patients and families. Currently, she is the manager of quality, safety and clinical adoption across University Health Network. With expertise in quality and safety, Laura collaborates across the health system to enhance patient experiences and improve quality of care. Dedicated to continuous learning and advancing patient safety, Laura is completing her PhD (health quality) at Queen’s University. She actively contributes to research and supports health-care professionals and learners as an honorary visiting research fellow at Cardiff University, research consultant with the Institute for Safe Medication Practice Canada, and mentor with the Canadian College of Health Leaders. Laura co-leads the Toronto Academic Health Science Network Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Community of Practice’s Improving Patient Safety Workstream.
Laura Williams
Senior Director of Patient Experience and Engagement, University Health Network; Canada
Laura is a clinician and healthcare leader with over 20 years experience in the field of patient and family engagement including the development of the Ontario provincial framework. She is the Senior Director of Patient Experience and Engagement for the University Health Network (UHN). UHN is Canada’s largest health system with 2 acute care hospitals, provincial cancer centre and network of rehabilitation centres treating 35,000 inpatients and 1.2 million outpatient visits per year. The Patient Experience and Engagement team provide leadership and support for TeamUHN to engage patients in their care and through organizational decision-making.
Laura is also an advocacy partner to her 18-year old son who has a rare genetic condition called GRIN1. Their journey has been documented in the podcast ‘Unlocking Bryson’s Brain’. This experience prompted Laura to pursue a Doctorate in Rehabilitation & Health Leadership at Queen’s University with a focus on supported and inclusive living for young people and adults with intellectual disabilities.
Laura Yearsley
Associate Director of Insight, NHS Horizons, Midlands and Lancashire CSU; England
Laura is the creator of Rapid Insights; a powerful approach that turns data generated from complex network interactions into actionable insights. She provides guidance and training on Rapid Insight and has been part of creating transformational change alongside leaders of health and care systems in the UK, America and Canada. Laura has been working within health and care for 20 years and has a strong background in policy and strategy where she led large change initiatives on sepsis, the quality of NHS investigations, and reform of the public health system. Laura is passionate about working alongside others to help make sense of what is emerging, and to use her wider system knowledge to develop incisive insights communities can use to take action. She wants everyone involved in convening people, to have the opportunity to learn the art of Rapid Insight, and believes it is fundamental to how we lead change.
Laura Zwaan
Associate Professor, Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR), Erasmus MC; Netherlands
Laura Zwaan, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR) of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. She has a background in cognitive psychology and epidemiology and obtained a PhD degree from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.
Dr. Zwaan is fascinated by how clinicians make diagnostic decisions, particularly when facing uncertainty and complex situations. She leads a research group of 10 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, with a focus on the diagnostic reasoning process and the cognitive factors contributing to diagnostic errors. Recently, her research has expanded to include the use of AI-tools in the diagnostic process.
Dr. Zwaan received several grants and awards for her work, including prestigious personal VENI and VIDI grant from the Netherlands Scientific Organization and the Mark Graber award for her contributions to improving diagnostic Safety.
She also founded the European Diagnostic Error in Medicine conferences and served as the lead organizer and chair for the inaugural conference in Rotterdam in 2016.
Lauren Ramsey
Senior Research Fellow, Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (YH PSRC); England
Dr Lauren Ramsey is a Senior Research Fellow working within the ‘safer systems, cultures and practices’ theme of the Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (YH PSRC). Lauren has a background in applied health services research, and is a keen qualitative methodologist, with a particular interest in how qualitative approaches can answer key research questions to improve the quality and safety of care.
Leahora Rotteau
Program Manager, University of Toronto Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety; Canada
Dr. Leahora Rotteau is the Program Manager for the University of Toronto Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS). She oversees all centre operations related to quality improvement and patient safety education, research and capacity building. Dr. Rotteau has a doctorate in health system research from the University of Toronto and serves as researcher at CQuIPS. She uses qualitative research methods and social science theory to understand how quality and safety interventions are taken up in practice. More recently, she has taken on the role of SQUIRE co-lead at CQuIPS.
Lindsey Boechler
Research Manager, Saskatchewan Polytechnic; Canada
Lindsey Boechler is a Research Manager with the Centre of Health Research, Innovation and Scholarship, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, Canada. Lindsey practiced as an Advanced Care Paramedic in urban, rural, and northern settings for more than a decade prior to becoming an educator. Lindsey obtained her Master of Arts- Leadership from Royal Roads University in 2019 and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. Lindsey is a 2022 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship recipient. She also received the 2022 Award of Excellence for Research and Innovation from the Paramedic Association of Canada (PAC) and 2023 Saskatchewan Polytechnic Applied Research Award of Excellence. Lindsey’s current research explores how virtual reality (VR) technology can be used to support the mental health and well-being of Indigenous youth living in rural and remote communities.
Marco Aurelio
Associate Director of Quality Improvement, East London NHS Foundation Trust; England
Marco is Associate Director for Quality Improvement at East London NHS Foundation Trust. Marco has over a decade of experience leading large-scale change, using QI to tackle problems including Population Health, staff wellbeing, Equity and patient safety. Prior to joining the NHS, Marco spent time working as an information scientist. He has postgraduate degrees in information science, health informatics, leadership and public health. Marco has authored several articles in peer reviewed journals.
Marie O'Haire
Organizational Development Specialist, HSE Ireland; Ireland
Marie has a long career in enabling people and services develop for the better. Currently she is a member of the National Organisation Development & Design Team in the HSE formally working as a Leadership, Education and Talent Development Manager in HSE West. Her qualifications include RGN, RM, PHN HDIP, BNS Hons, MSc Health Services Management, ACC accredited ICF Coach, certified Mediator and Organisational Development and Design CIPD Certified Practitioner. Working in health services in various roles in Ireland and aboard since 1986, Marie has acquired a rich and broad range of experience which she brings to her current work in OD and change. She commenced her career as a general nurse in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, then as a midwife in Scotland and England in the early 1990s, eventually moving on to work as a Primary Care advisor in Mozambique and South Sudan for contracted periods in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s with an International Non-Governmental Organisation. Marie returned to Ireland and spent a number of years in Dublin as a Public Health Nurse and in 2001 moved into change management, facilitation, training and Workplace Partnership. 2011 brought change and Marie joined the Leadership, Learning and Talent Development Team. In her present role she is part of the National HSE Organisation Development & Design team working with the CEO and the Health Region Implementation Team. The team supports the building of change capacity and capability within the health services in Ireland. She is passionate about enabling services to respond to people and community needs and her philosophy in life is to make sure that those who come in contact with her leave feeling empowered.
Mariska Vaes
Bethanië GGZ; Belgium
Mariska started as Quality Manager at Bethanië GGZ in 2021 after six years as a prevention worker in addiction care. In her current role, she focuses on raising awareness around the evolution of quality within teams, integrating the perspectives and experiences of patients and their families into care quality, and building connections with diverse stakeholders. Her work is dedicated to fostering collaboration, ensuring transparency, and promoting an inclusive approach to quality improvement.
Marjolein Heemels
Nursing Director, Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC+); Netherlands
Marjolein Heemels, MSc, RN, MHA, works as director of nursing at Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC+). For many years she’s involved in the development of the nursing profession. The Maastricht UMC+ gives meaning to professionalisation of the nursing profession by developping a professional nursing organisation. Professional governance is a crucial element in this. Marjolein states that Professional governance requires vision, direction and guidance. Her vision is based on a solid professional identity as a foundation for leadership, accountability and professionalisation. Marjolein has been involved in professional governance in the Netherlands for more than 15 years and is also a guest lecturer at various nursing leadership courses. Making nursing future-proof with the best patient care in mind is always crucial to her.
Mathé Delissen
PhD Candidate, UMC Utrecht; Netherlands
Mathé Delissen obtained his medical degree from Utrecht University in 2021. After graduation, he worked for one year as a resident not in training at St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht. In 2023, he began his PhD trajectory at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center Utrecht, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. D.L. Zwart, Prof. Dr. F.H. Rutten, and Dr. E. de Groot. His PhD research focuses on implementing evidence-based improvements in telephone triage for patients calling out-of-hours primary care for chest discomfort. Mathé combines his PhD work with a postgraduate master’s in Epidemiology at Utrecht University.
Matthijs van der Linde
Program Leader Linnean Initiatief, National Health Care Institute; Netherlands
Driven by his personal experiences in healthcare, Matthijs has spent the past seven years immersed in the field of Value-Based Health Care and Healthcare System Transformation. Today, he is an experienced trainer, consultant, and pivotal member of the Linnean Initiatief. In this capacity, he has spearheaded a range of projects focused on major themes within VBHC, including outcomes, costs, reimbursement, data & IT, education & leadership and change management. He is also a key contributor to the VBHC implementation guide developed by the Linnean Initiatief.
Maureen Tshabalala
Senior Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); South Africa
Dr Maureen Fatsani Tshabalala, RNM, BBA, MPH, Ph.D., is a Senior Director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). She currently leads and oversees diverse projects in several countries in Sub-Saharan-Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia) and beyond (Indonesia, and Nepal). She provides strategic and operational guidance, assists with program design, and proposal writing. She offers technical assistance to IHI’s project teams, organizations, and ministries of health (MoH) on their quality improvement initiatives. She manages relationships with funders, technical partners, including MoH. She is a trained improvement science specialist and has extensively worked as an improvement Advisor on multiple projects in numerous countries, leading several improvement collaboratives. She is a content contributor and teaches IHI’s professional development programs both in-person and virtually. She has also assisted in IHI’s Middle East Region with capability building in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and India. Prior to joining IHI 12 years ago, she worked for Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) as a Quality Improvement Manager, leading quality improvement efforts in five provinces in South Africa. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with her family.
Michelle Spek
General Practitioner in training, Utrecht; Netherlands
Michelle Spek completed a master’s in medicine and clinical research at Maastricht University, obtaining her medical degree in 2020. Immediately after graduation, she began her PhD trajectory at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center Utrecht, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. D.L. Zwart, Prof. Dr. F.H. Rutten, Dr. R.P. Venekamp, and Dr. E. de Groot. Her PhD research focuses on optimizing telephone triage for patients calling out-of-hours primary care for acute shortness of breath. Michelle combined her PhD work with a postgraduate master’s in Epidemiology at Utrecht University, which she completed in 2023. During her PhD program, she also began the general practitioner vocational training in Utrecht.
Milou Steenbergen
Nurse Researcher, PhD student, UMC Utrecht; Netherlands
Milou Steenbergen is a registered nurse and nurse researcher at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), blending clinical practice with academic research. Since 2021, she has been pursuing a PhD focusing on the Safety II methodology to enhance healthcare quality. She is also key in developing the Community of Practice in clinical nursing at UMCU, linking clinical practice with academic research.
Minara Chowdury
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); England
A healthcare professional with over 20 years’ experience in healthcare operational management, quality improvement and change management. Minara worked with the NHS for 7 years before relocating to Qatar working on various improvement initiatives. In 2018, Minara commenced work with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and relocated to work in Bangladesh on a USAID funded project to improve the Quality of Care for maternal and newborn services in 17 Districts. In 2022, Minara relocated back to the UK and has extended her portfolio working on a range of global projects in the UK, Africa, Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. Minara has extensive experience in designing and implementing interventions that address Quality of Care and is passionate about addressing inequities through these. Minara has a master’s from the University of Sussex in Management of Change and is also a qualified Project Management Professional.
Mirella Minkman
Vilans, Center of Excellence for Care and Support; Netherlands
Endowed Professor at Tilburg University/TIAS Business school in The Netherlands, chair Innovation of Organization and Governance of Integrated Care.
Besides her professorship, Mirella is CEO of Vilans, the National Knowledge Organization for care and support (Utrecht, the Netherlands). Vilans bridges science, practice, policy and education by running national large scale innovation and implementation programs and by hosting frequently visited national knowledge platforms. Mirella’s expertise is focused on person-oriented integrated care between people and organizations in networks and alliances and what other governance modes are needed, and how to develop and implement them. This includes themes like leadership, supervision (internal and external) and accountability as ingredients of good governance for integrated care.
Mirella is the chair of the National Governance Innovation Advisory Committee of the BoZ and the chair of the Scientific Advisory board of the NVTZ (National Association of supervisors in health care). She is a Supervisory Board member of the RIBW Brabant (mental health care) and supervisory board member of the Rivierenland Hospital in Tiel. She serves as a member of the Committee of Experts of the National Association for Dissabilities (VGN).
On the international level Mirella is editor of the International Journal for Integrated Care, Advisory Group member of WHO’s Integrating the Health and Care Workforce group and member of the Critical Friends Group of the UK Center for Evidence IMPACT.
Naheen Ali
Lived Experience Advisor
Naheen is a Lived Experience Advisor, who has over a decade of experience working in both the charity and mental health sector in the UK. She has worked with the homeless, refugees, children and young people, those facing social and financial difficulties, and those in the criminal justice system. She also holds a BA (Hons) degree in Social Sciences. She has been a Peer Support Worker for her local mental health Trust. Nationally she is a Trustee of a mental health research charity, and is an Adviser to NHSE. She also sits on the Editorial Board for The British Journal of Social Work. Locally she carries out Quality Improvement work with her local mental health Trust.
Nandi Simpson
Director: Implementation, NHS Race and Health Observatory, UK
Nandi is Director: Implementation at the NHS Race and Health Observatory. She has a background in large strategic health systems partnership programmes, including developing and implementing strategy at the interface between the NHS and Higher Education sector. Nandi joins the NHS Race and Health Observatory from King’s Health Partners Academic Health Science Centre, where she led the development and implementation of a strategy focussed on embedding research in the NHS with a view to improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities for women and children. Nandi has extensive experience of working collaboratively with stakeholders across systems to identify and implement common objectives, including on national and international clinical-academic partnership programmes.
Naser Hatami
Physician, RadanModern Medicine-Equipment Co.; Iran
Dr. Naser Hatami is a general practitioner, currently serving as an emergency department physician. His research expertise lies at the intersection of public health and health equity, with a particular focus on promoting equal access to healthcare for all. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Hatami’s research endeavors concentrated on the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilization patterns, shedding light on the critical issues that arose during this global health crisis.
Natalie Royston
Head of People Participation, Solent NHS Trust; England
Natalie is a participation facilitator, with experience collaborating with patients, their networks, and communities to enhance healthcare. She facilitates workshops and provides bespoke support to service lines focused on engaging with service users to improve services. Natalie leads the Academy’s Side-by-Side Patient Network, allowing her to learn on the job and offer authentic advice and support to others looking to make improvements through inclusive and meaningful co-production. Natalie has a teaching background as the English as an Additional Language Lead and has drawn on these skills in how we engage with diverse communities and elevating seldom-heard voices.
Nico van Weert
Founder, Society Personalised Healthcare; Netherlands
Nico van Weert PhD founded, with three others, the Dutch Society for Personalised Care, with the mission to spread and develop personalised care.
Nico was trained as a medical sociologist and health services researcher and holds a PhD from the Medical Faculty of Radboud University and certificates on Leading Health Care Delivery from Harvard Business School. He has a full career in research-based quality improvement and innovation in health care and currently has a practice in developing effective collaboration in healthcare.
In 2021, the book Personalized Specialty Care, Value-based Healthcare Frontrunners from the Netherlands (editors: Nico van Weert and Jan Hazelzet) was internationally published by Springer.
Nicolette Sinclair
Interventional Radiologist, Saskatchewan Health Authority; Canada
Dr. Nicolette Sinclair is an Interventional Radiologist who was born in Fiji but is now practicing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is an Interventional Radiologist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Sinclair completed the Province wide Clinical Quality Improvement Program which opened her eyes to the world of QI and patient safety and has been honored to be involved with the peritoneal catheter initiative and clinical improvement team.
Paulo Borem
Senior Director, Latin America, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Dr. Paulo Borem, MD is an IHI Improvement Advisor, Patient Safety Officer, IHI´s faculty and Patient Safety and Quality at FESP, a medical cooperative and health plan that is part of a network of 350 Unimeds, that has 20 million clients and 100,000 physicians. He is leading initiatives related to care delivery reform for the whole Unimed System, such as the implementation of Primary Care Centers and the improvement of maternal and perinatal care and dental care.
He is the director of 3 Collaborative IHI is running in Brazil and Portugal. He is also a Vascular Surgeon.
Pedro Delgado
Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Northern Ireland
Pedro Delgado oversees IHI’s portfolio of work in three regions (Latin America, Europe, and Australasia) and the IHI Open School. Based in the United Kingdom, he has been a driving force in IHI’s global expansion. From work on reducing C-sections and healthcare-acquired infections in Brazil and several Latin American countries, to improving early years education in Chile, to improving patient safety in Portugal and mental health in London, Mr. Delgado has led the key senior relationships and design and implementation of large-scale health system improvement efforts and networks globally.
Peter Lachman
MD MPH, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Irish health service; Ireland
MD MPH develops and delivers programmes to develop clinical leaders in quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He works with the Irish health service global program in Africa. From 2016-21he was International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua), 2005-16, Deputy Medical Director with the lead for Patient Safety at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Consultant Paediatrician at the Royal Free Hospital in London specialising in the challenge of long term conditions for children. He was a Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellow at IHI in 2005-2006.He is the lead editor of the OUP Handbook on Patient Safety published in April 2022; Co-Editor of the OUP Handbook on Medical Leadership and Management published in December 2022; and Editor of the OUP Handbook on Quality Improvement in Healthcare published February 2024.
Pierre Barker
MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA
Pierre M. Barker, MD, MBChB, Chief Scientific Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), oversees IHI’s cutting-edge innovation, design, and learning activities, ensuring that practical improvement methods and tools are accessible to all. He has designed effective health improvement interventions across a variety of health systems and economies, and has worked closely with the World Health Organization to help develop a global improvement and implementation strategies. He practiced clinical and academic Pediatrics for more than 30 years in South Africa, UK, and US. He has extensive experience in basic, clinical, and implementation science research and is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Maternal and Child Health Department at Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill.
Rachel Jones
Learning Disability National Programme Lead, NHS Wales Executive; Wales
Dr Rachel Ann Jones holds a Practitioner Doctorate, two Master’s and a Degree in Psychology. She is an Associate Fellow & Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychology Society and a Registered Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Care Professionals Council. She is also a member of the Faculty for Intellectual Disabilities, the Division of Counselling Psychology, the Health Foundation Q Network Community and the European Network for Positive Psychology. Rachel has a focused career path within the specialism of Learning Disabilities and is currently working within the NHS Wales Executive as National Programme Lead for Learning Disability.
Raihan Sharif
Project Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Bangladesh
Dr. Raihan Sharif is supporting IHI’s work as a Project Director of ‘Delivering More: Model Maternal Spaces’ in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Kenya funded by Gates Foundation to increase adoption, replication, and scale up the integration of Delivering More Toolkit and MNH space considerations as a driver for improvements in QoC into national plans and global health policy guidelines. Previously, he worked as QI Implementation Advisor in USAID’s MaMoni MNCSP and supported implementation of MNHQI bundle collaboratives in Bangladesh. Prior to joining IHI he served in various capacities in Bangladesh including Divisional QI Coordinator in Save The Children; District Focal to support national immunization program in WHO; Program Manager (Health) in Urban Development program and Health, Nutrition & Population Program in BRAC. He completed MBBS, MPH from Dhaka and Improvement Coach professional development programs in IHI. He practiced as a clinician before starting his career as a Public Health professional.
Rebecca Curtis
Senior Improvement Manager, Improvement Cymru, NHS Executive; Wales
Rebecca Curtis is a registered specialist social worker with a robust background in children’s and young people’s mental health and learning disability services. She is a graduate member of the British Psychological Society and brings a wealth of experience to her role as an improvement practitioner, improvement coach, and PRINCE2 practitioner. Throughout her career, Rebecca has demonstrated a keen interest in cross-sector collaboration to enhance the quality of service user journeys to achieve better outcomes. Her commitment to partnership working across various sectors underscores her dedication to improving the delivery of care and support, ensuring that services are both effective and responsive to the needs of the communities they serve.
Relinde De Koeijer
Program Director and senior researcher, Erasmus Center of Healthcare Management, Erasmus University; Netherlands
Relinde de Koeijer is a program director on clinical leadership and senior researcher on continuous improvement in healthcare. In addition, she is assistant director at the Erasmus Center of Healthcare Management, lecturer, and supervisory board member in healthcare. More information via https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-relinde-de-koeijer-0a09366/?originalSubdomain=nl
Rod Stryker
Nephrologist, Kidney Health, Saskatchewan Health Authority; Canada
Dr. Stryker is the Division Head, Department of Nephrology, and Medical Director for Home Based Dialysis and Hemodialysis. As a Nephrologist, he has a research interest in promotion and increased utilization of home based therapies. Dr. Stryker has partnered with Canadian Nephrology centres to standardize care pathways. As Medical Director, he has endeavoured to improve how quality and safety metrics are collected and used to drive process improvement.
Rosanna Hunt
Senior Associate, Midlands and Lancashire CSU; England
Organisational psychologist, Sensemaker practitioner and OD professional with expertise in improvement science, evaluating complexity and organisational development. I have a Psychology Ph.D and CIPD certificate in the Psychology of Organisational Development and Change. Over the past 20 years, I have evaluated change in complex systems, led the development of the NHS Energy for Change model and questionnaire, conducted research, evaluation and training at Cambridge University, England, the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and the European Union. More recently, I have worked for NHS National Improvement bodies, such as the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, undertaking a wide range of responsibilities from Learning Specialist to Head of Organisational Development. I currently live near Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, England with my husband and three children.
Ruth Glassborow
Director of Population Health and Wellbeing, Public Health Scotland (PHS); Scotland
As Director of Population Health and Wellbeing at Public Health Scotland, Ruth is focused on influencing policy and enabling practice change with the aim of reducing Scotland’s health inequalities and improving healthy life expectancy. Her previous role as Director of Improvement at Healthcare Improvement Scotland included strategic leadership for the development of the QMS approach, the Scottish Patient Safety Programme and shifting the national QI approach to include a focus on person centred systems transformation. Ruth has a Masters in Public Administration from Warwick Business School and a Masters in Leadership (Quality Improvement) from Ashridge Business School. She is also a Health Foundation Generation Q fellow, a Health Foundation Sciana fellow and a qualified executive coach.
Ruth Jordan
Assistant Director for Improvement, Implementation & Spread, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board; Wales
Having started her career as a physiotherapist, Ruth is a quality improvement specialist with over 20 years of experience in the South Wales health system. A naturally curious leader, Ruth is passionate about helping others to make services better. Ruth was instrumental in establishing the Spread and Scale Academy in Wales in 2019, which has since become a successful programme under the All-Wales Intensive Learning Academy for Innovation in Health and Social Care. She is now the Spread and Scale Programme Director at the Dragon’s Heart Institute and a Fellow of the Billions Institute, with whom she co-delivers the academy. Together, Ruth and her team have helped train dozens of teams working on cutting-edge innovation and best practice on how to spread and scale their projects, giving them the tools, skills and self-knowledge as large-scale change leaders to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from their work.
Sabina Annika Lund
Chief Nurse, Region Zealand / Slagelse Hospital; Denmark
My name is Sabina Lund, I am Chief Nurse in a surgical department at Slagelse Hospital in Denmark. I hold a Master’s degree in Public Management and an SQSF (Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship). I have been dedicated to improvement work since 2017. Together with my colleagues, I have worked on several initiatives to enhance care for acute surgical patients, improve communication in multidisciplinary teams, and focus on developing a stronger patient safety culture.
At the IHI conference, I will present our latest efforts to strengthen the patient safety culture and share insights from the process of creating sustainable cultural change.
Samantha Allen
Chief Executive, North East & North Cumbria Integrated Care Board; England
Sam is an experienced NHS Chief Executive and joined the North East and North Cumbria to set up the ICB in January 2022. In addition to her NHS career, which spans nearly 30 years, Sam is also the National Director for Management and Leadership at NHS England and Chair of the Health and Care Women Leaders Network for NHS Confederation.
Santa Cuda
Lived Experience Representative, University Health Network for Better Health; Canada
Santa Cuda is a dedicated caregiver with over 30 years of experience navigating the healthcare system for her parents. Her mother, a cardiac patient at UHN for 27 years, and has undergone multiple coronary procedures. This experience has given Santa invaluable insights into patient advocacy and proactive care management.
Committed to patient-centered care, Santa has been a UHN Patient Partner since 2019, contributing to several impactful initiatives across UHN like the Patient & Family Escalation of Care, Speak Up for Safety Workshop, and the Senior Emergency Medicine Centre Steering Committee, Caregiver Advisory Committee and The UHN Quality & Safety Committee. In 2023, she spoke at the UHN Quality and Safety Summit, sharing her experiences.
Santa holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto and has run her own business for over 20 years. As president of her business association, she has led initiatives to change policies and laws benefitting residents and small businesses. She has been recognized for her contributions as a business owner, community volunteer, and UHN Patient Partner.
Santa has recently completed leadership and data analytics programs. Passionate about healthcare delivery, she strives to improve patient outcomes and empower other caregivers in advocating for their loved ones.
Sarah Galloway
QII Lead, South West London & St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust; England
Sarah has almost 30 years’ experience in the NHS as a registered Mental Health Nurse. Her expertise lies in pioneering new services and roles, and she currently holds the position of Quality Improvement and Innovation Manager/Improvement Advisor at SWLSTG. She is an accredited QSIR associate. Her professional journey has seen her in various clinical roles such as forensics, CaMHS and CMHT’s, and she has also shared her knowledge a s a lecturer/practitioner, focusing on psychosocial interventions. Sarah’s academic achievements include an MSc In Psychiatric and Mental Health nursing from the University of Newcastle and an MRES (Clin) from St Georges University, and an honorary lecturer role at both Kingston University and Kings college. Currently a PhD student at Kingston University, researching absorptive capacity, external inspections in mental health organisations at Kingston University.
Sarah Williams
Director of Research & Improvement, Solent NHS Trust; England
Sarah has a background in public health, having worked on health promotion programmes primarily in Eastern Africa and Central America. She joined the NHS in England nearly 15 years ago, and now leads the improvement team for large community and mental health provider. She established and now leads the Solent Academy of Research & Improvement. The first of its kind in the NHS, it provides an integrated approach to research, clinical effectiveness, quality improvement and patient and public partnership working. The point of this is to provide an accessible source of a support for staff, communities and service users to engage in a broad range of improvement activities. Sarah is a strong advocate for person centred research, accessibility and increasing equity in participation. She is particularly passionate about ensuring that the patient/ family voice is at the heart, and in breaking down barriers to enhance inclusion.
Sasha Karakusevic
NHS Horizons/NHS England & Improvement; England
Sasha started his career in dentistry and maxillofacial surgery. Whilst learning about the intricacies of clinical care he found the challenges of how to organise a health system even more compelling. He spent more than 20 years working on integrated care in South Devon developing an internationally-recognised system. Realising that even this system would not be good enough to deal with the demographic and economic pressures facing us today he started to explore how to significantly improve health system productivity. This led to establishing a Health Innovation Education Cluster, working with the Nuffield Trust and working with the NHS Horizons team to support teams delivering large scale transformation. Sasha combines his clinical, operational and strategic experience to design and facilitate large scale transformation programmes.
Scott Ballard-Ridley
Lived experience partner; England
Scott Ballard-Ridley is a qualified Physiotherapist. Not long after graduating Scott suffered a major Stroke which left him with significant physical impairments including the complete loss of his vision.
Scott has worked in NHS Neurology services, for the Stroke Association and since 2016 Scott has been working for the Social enterprise, Bridges Self-Management where he works with healthcare practitioners in practice and research to see how they might be able to adopt a more personalised approach to their work. Since 2020 Scott has also been working with NHS England to look at how they can bring more of the lived experience element to the development of policy.
Scott is an accomplished public speaker where he uses his healthcare experiences to illustrate both positive and negative healthcare interactions and how we can use these experiences as a spark for change.
Sheena Bhagirath
PhD Candidate - Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Amsterdam UMC; Netherlands
Sheena Bhagirath, currently pursuing her PhD, is a dedicated and enthusiastic physician with a focus on personalised medicine and innovation. Alongside clinical practice in the field of Cardiology, she has engaged in research as a visiting scholar at UCL, exploring the use of the application of machine learning in medicine (imaging, prediction models). Her previous work also spans health policy and occupational medicine, contributing to comprehensive and practical healthcare solutions. Sheena’s approach blends hands-on patient care with innovative research and thoughtful policy development, aiming to enhance the quality and effectiveness of healthcare. Passionate about advancing the field, she hopes to bring valuable insights and experiences to the discussion on quality and safety in healthcare.
Shraiya Stan
Doctor, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Hospital, New Delhi; India
MD (physician) graduated from Volgograd State Medical University in Russia. I have two years of clinical experience gained from working at RML Hospital and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Hospital in Delhi, India.
Siri Wiig
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences; Norway and Honorary Professor, Macquarie University and University of Wollongong; Australia
Siri Wiig (1977), PhD, MSc, is Centre Director at SHARE – Centre for Resilience in Healthcare, at the University of Stavanger (UiS), Norway. The SHARE centre is the largest research group in Norway doing research on quality and safety in healthcare. Wiig is full Professor of Quality and Safety in Healthcare Systems at the Faculty of Health Sciences, UiS. Key research interests are resilience in healthcare, patient safety, quality improvement, safety investigations, user involvement, risk regulation, leadership, and learning in socio-technical systems.
Wiig is Adjunct Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Haugesund, Norway and Honorary Professor at Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia and at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has been member of national public commissions reporting to the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services (2013-2015) and to the Ministry of Defence (2015-2016). Wiig has been actively involved in the creation of the Norwegian National Independent Accident Investigation Board in Healthcare (2018). Wiig has been involved in several national and international research projects as project manager, principal investigator, and researcher. Of the most important Wiig is leading the SAFE-LEAD study focusing on leading quality and safety in nursing homes and homecare (2016-2023), funded by the Research Council Norway (RCN). Moreover, Wiig is leading the RCN project Resilience in Healthcare (2018-2024). The RIH project develops a new theoretical and translational framework for resilience and includes an international comparative study across six countries including Australia, England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, and Norway. The RIH project let up the EU Grant Support4Resilience-Strengthening resilience and mental wellbeing through the Support4Resilience toolbox for leaders in elderly care (2024-2028). EU HORIZON-HLTH-2023-CARE-04-02. University of Stavanger/SHARE Centre for Resilience in Healthcare is coordinator of the consortium of 14 partners from 9 countries, and Wiig is leading project starting 1st March 2024.
Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Siri-Wiig
Open access book: Wiig, S. & Fahlbruch, B. (eds). Exploring Resilience: A Scientific Journey from Practice to Theory. Springer Open. Open access: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-03189-3.pdf
Suzie Bailey
Director of Leadership and Organisational Development, The King’s Fund; England
Suzie Bailey, Director of Leadership and Organisational Development at The King’s Fund, has 25+ years healthcare leadership experience. She is passionate about enhancing care through people development and cultural improvement, collaborating with organizations across the UK and internationally. National work has included leading the design of England’s first national framework for improvement and leadership development for the NHS. Suzie is a Health Foundation GenerationQ Fellow and co-led the creation of the Sheffield Microsystem Coaching Academy in partnership with the Dartmouth Institute in Massachusetts, USA. She is a trustee of Skills for Care and serves on the editorial board of the Future Healthcare Journal. In November 2023, Suzie was named one of the 50 Leading Lights in the UK, recognizing kind leaders’ contributions to business, the economy, and society.
Tamara Broughton
PHD-student / Quality Advisor, Tilburg University / Meander Medical Centre; Netherlands
Experience: Quality Advisor – Meander Medical Centre (2020 – present) PHD student – Tilburg University (2022 – present) Board member of youth branch STZ (Samenwerkende Topklinische Ziekenhuizen) (2023 – present) Education: Master in Science – Healthcare Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam (2020-2021) Pre-master Health care Management (2019-2020) Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science – Amsterdam University College (2013 – 2016).
Tanya Verrall
Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council; Canada
Tanya joined the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council (HQC) in 2005, bringing extensive experience in coaching, facilitation, and evaluation of health improvement initiatives to research and leadership roles within the organization. As Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Tanya is passionate about challenging the status quo and finding innovative ways to accelerate the improvement of health and well-being for the people of Saskatchewan. She leads HQC’s work to build strategic relationships with external partners, identifying promising approaches to large-scale change to inform HQC’s strategy. Tanya holds a Ph.D. in Nutrition from McGill University as well as a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science from the University of Saskatchewan. She is a graduate of the Improvement Advisor and Graduate Advisor programs from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as well as a certified Lean Leader. From 2008-2013, she served as an Institute Advisory Board member with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Thomas Spiegel
Vice President and Health System Chief Quality Officer, University of Chicago; USA
Tom Spiegel, MD, MS, MBA, FACEP is the Vice President and Health System Chief Quality Officer at the University of Chicago Medicine (UCM). Prior to his CQO role at UCM, he has served as both the Interim Section Chief of Emergency Medicine and the ED’s Medical Director since 2014. He also previously served as the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Chair of the Medical Director Section and previously served on their Patient Quality and Safety Committee. Prior to joining UCM, Dr. Spiegel had over 20 years of experience including serving as the Vice President of Business Strategy and Operations Support for Marriott International, an Analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank, and a Consultant for the Small Business Administration. He holds board certifications in both Emergency Medicine and Clinical Informatics.
Tiffany Blair
Director, Integrated Saskatoon Health, Saskatchewan Health Authority
Tiffany Blair is a PhD Candidate with the College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. Her area of study is on the impact of a culturally sensitive clinical improvement team approach to reduce peritoneal catheter failure rates. She is the Director of Integration and Performance Excellence for Acute Care. She is a certified Green Belt in Lean methodologies and background in quality improvement and safety management systems thinking. Her management approach to imbed quality and safety into operations in a patient and family centred manner.
Tracey Sherin
CEO, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council, Saskatchewan Health Quality Council; Canada
Since joining the Health Quality Council in 2005, Tracey has become an accomplished and experienced leader with expertise in research and analysis, measurement for improvement, quality improvement methods, coaching, teaching, and facilitation. During her time at the Health Quality Council, she has worked in a variety of areas including drug management in long-term care, chronic disease management, Clinical Practice Redesign, quality improvement coaching, and leadership for improvement. Prior to becoming the Chief Executive Officer, Tracey was the Director, Data Analysis and Research Partnerships, where she led a diverse and talented team of researchers and research analysts to generate evidence to enable improvement in health and health care. Tracey also serves on the Oversight Committee for the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research (SCPOR). SCPOR is one of 11 SUPPORT Units established across the country as part of Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, led by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Tricia Bolender
Faculty and Improvement Advisor, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Luxembourg
Tricia works with leaders and organizations who are changing the world. She advises senior leaders in governments, social impact organizations, and Fortune 500 companies on strategy, innovation, and impact. She serves as Faculty at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and is a Contributor at the Institute for Professional Worklife. She has been a TEDx speaker, an Acumen Fellow and has served on the Board of Directors of several non-profits in the health and education fields. A Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), she is currently a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. She is passionate about living a purpose-driven life and has spoken on this topic at Yale, MIT and Columbia Universities. A native New Yorker, she now lives in Luxembourg with her husband and two children.
Victoria Howes
Victoria Howes, Deputy Director of Strategy, Care Quality Commission; England
Victoria is Deputy Director of Strategy at the Care Quality Commission and has worked in regulation and oversight for over 20 years. She led the development of CQC’s latest regulatory strategy, setting the future direction for health and social care regulation in England. Victoria is on the board of the UK’s Institute of Regulation and teaches on the Erasmus International Regulator Course at Erasmus University. She is passionate about value driven regulation which goes beyond compliance and uses all the regulatory levers available to drive improvement.
Wendy Korthuis-Smith
Executive Director, Virginia Mason Institute; USA
Partnering with healthcare leaders, organizations, and systems worldwide, Wendy brings over 30 years of extensive experience in leading large-scale change and transformation to drive impactful outcomes. As Executive Director of Virginia Mason Institute (VMI), she provides strategic leadership and vision, guiding the direction of engagement services and operational excellence. Wendy leverages first- hand knowledge and insights gained from Virginia Mason’s 20+ year journey in developing their world-class management system to continuously innovate and deliver value. Before joining VMI, Wendy excelled at Deloitte Consulting, Strategy and Operations, where she consulted at local, national, and international levels. As a former professor for Chapman University’s master’s degree programs in organizational leadership and healthcare, she recognizes the importance of melding the science and theory of improvement with practical, achievable methodologies and practices. Wendy holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a focus on Organizational Development.
Willem Jan Bos
Internist, St Antonius Hospital; Netherlands
WJW (Willem Jan) Bos, MD PhD, is an internist specialized in kidney disease. He combines an appointment at the department of Internal Medicine at the Leiden University Medical Center, on a bestowed chair: “Nephrology: Outcomes of care” with a clinical appointment at the St Antoniusziekenhuis Utrecht/Nieuwegein. He is involved in Value Based Healthcare (VBHC) initiatives in both hospitals, and in the nephrology project of the Santeon chain of hospitals. Research is focused on improving healthcare using value based principles, with special attention for kidney care for elderly. He further co-chairs the Linnean Initiative, a national initiative to facilitate VBHC implementation in the Netherlands and chaired the ICHOM working group on Chronic Kidney Disease.
William Weeks
Director, AI for Health, Microsoft; United States
William B. Weeks, MD, PhD, MBA, is a Physician-Economist leading Microsoft’s Philanthropic AI for Health effort. There, he conducts research in concert with not-for-profit organizations and academic centers designed to improve health and health outcomes by applying AI in imaging, public health, and large language modeling. Dr. Weeks has published two books and over 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts examining economic and business aspects of health care services utilization and delivery, physicians’ return on educational investment, health care delivery science, and healthcare value. Dr. Weeks has won numerous national and international awards for his research.
Wouter van der Schors
Senior Advisor, Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate; Netherlands
Dr Wouter van der Schors works as a Senior Advisor for the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. His activities are focused on the development and methodology of supervision in Dutch healthcare. In his previous roles, he has conducted research on collaboration in healthcare, centralisation of complex care and the interplay between competition and quality. He holds a master’s in Sociology and a PhD in Health Economics.
Zoe Lord
Deputy Director, NHS Horizons; England
Zoe works in the English health service and is the Deputy Director at NHS Horizons. She co-leads a team focused on health and care improvement initiatives that have positively impacted tens of thousands of staff and patients. With over 20 years of experience and drawing on her background in applied psychology, she specialises in designing and leading large-scale change initiatives in complex environments. Zoe firmly believes in fostering collaborative and ownership-driven approaches that make a tangible impact on healthcare systems, staff, and the communities they serve. Her expertise includes Quality Improvement, Liberating Structures, Social Movements, Vertical Development, Public Narrative, and the psychology of change.