Speakers

Prof. Bruno G. Gridelli, MD
Professor of Surgery, Director ISMETT, Italy

Bruno Gridelli is a world-renowned surgeon and medical researcher. He graduated in 1977 from the University of Milan. From 1997 to 2003, he was director of the Transplant Center at Bergamo Hospital. In 2003, he began his professorship in surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and served as medical and scientific director of ISMETT (the UPMC transplant hospital in Palermo) until 2009, when he became its CEO. He is also medical & scientific director of UPMC’s International Division, with the responsibility of promoting and supporting quality in UPMC’s overseas clinical and research activities. Dr. Gridelli contributed to the creation of the RiMED Foundation – a PPP among Italian government institutions and UPMC, funded with €300 million for construction and management of a cutting edge biomedical research center. He has published more than 250 scientific papers internationally. 

Dr. Lluís Pareras, MD, MBA
Manager of the Innovation, Technology and Business Project Incubation Area at the Barcelona Medical Association, Spain

Lluís Pareras is Director of Healthequity, a venture capital fund specialized in healthcare investments. Moreover, he is Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Barcelona Medical Association.

 Dr. Pareras is a Neurosurgeon and he has a Global Executive MBA from IESE Business School. After finishing his MBA in IESE he decided to focus on the healthcare industry and to bring his experience in the support of its development in Catalonia. An entrepreneur himself and author of several books on healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship, Dr. Pareras serves on the boards of several healthcare start-ups and his mission is to help physicians with the analysis and launch of new healthcare initiatives - opportunities in life sciences, medical devices, services and IT in the healthcare sector.

Tad Matus
South East Coast Strategic Health Authority, UK

Tad Matus is the Chief Information Officer for one tenth of the NHS in England (Kent, Surrey and Sussex). From an initial academic background in both organisational psychology and engineering, Tad has focussed on change in complex organisations, and latterly on the opportunities information and technology offers to drive transformation. For most of his career he has focussed on the NHS – as the single largest and most complex organisation in existence, and has done this from academic, consultancy, and management positions. His work has encompassed management decision making models, professional management development, the NHS National Programme for IT, and currently centres on local clinical innovation to improve productivity and enhance quality.

Francisco Garcia Lombardia
Manager of Innovation Programs and IT Strategic Project of Madrid Region, Spain
Francisco Garcia Lombardia has a PHD in Computer Science, he is Engineer in Computer Science and IT as well as MBA. He has worked for several years in various public and private organizations such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the industrial and finance sectors. Since 2008, he has been working in the health sector, amongst others as CIO in the University Hospital of Fuenlabrada. Currently, Lombardia acts as Manager of Innovation Programs and Strategic IT projects in the General Directorate of Information Systems in the Madrid Health Authority.  

José Manuel Pacho, MBA, DISTIC, CISA
MBA, DISTIC, CISA; Financial Officer for IT, Regional Health Service, Spain

José M. Pacho currently works for the Madrid Region Health Service, Health Information Systems Directorate, as Planning and Innovation Deputy Director. He is Computer Science Engineer (Madrid Politécnica University), Executive MBA (Instituto de Empresa Business), Master in IT Management (Madrid Politécnica Universtity), and Certified Information Systems Auditor, CISA  (ISACA). José M. Pacho has been working in the ICT Industry for more than 20 years, including more than 10 years of managing experience, as IT Manager, Strategic Projects Director and Purchasing Director, both in private companies (national and multinational ones) and in the Public Sector (Spanish Government and Madrid Region Government).  

Henning Schneider
Head of Medical IT Processes, University Medical Centre Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany

Henning Schneider has been the head of the medical IT department at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf since 2008.
From 2003 to 2008 he succeeded as a program manager at Siemens AG Healthcare Sector running complex customer projects to improve healthcare processes by integrating clinical workflows with IT and medical devices. Before this – from 1998 to 2003 – Henning Schneider worked at Siemens Business Services as a senior consultant for e-banking solutions.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, he studied Computer Science and Business Administration at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg and the University of Hamburg from 1994 to 1998. During his studies he started his career as a self-employed advisor for organisations and companies facing the new demands of the internet market. During his work at Siemens he was the winner of the Siemens Top Plus award in Dubai as one of the leading Project Manager worldwide in 2003. In 2005 he invented and established the Imaging Science Institute (www.isi-erlangen.de) which was a joint research centre between Siemens and the University Hospital of Erlangen to improve and develop medical devices, IT-Systems and processes directly in a clinical environment.

Dr. Peder Jest, MD, CMO
MD, CMO, Director, Odense University Hospital, Denmark

Peder Jest is a medical doctor, specialized in internal medicine, in geriatrics and rehabilitation. Moreover, he is a former Associate Professor in Geriatrics. Peder Jest has held various senior positions within The Hospital of Funen. In 1997, he was appointed medical director at The Hospital of Funen, a system of 9 hospitals that was later reduced to 5 hospitals partly because of the use of digital and telemedicine solutions.

In 2008 The Funen Hospital and Odense University Hospital were merged into one organization. With 9.500 employees and an annual budget of one billion Euros, it is Denmark’s biggest hospital and offers every medical specialty.  Peder Jest is CMO and director of the managing board.

Dr. Jest is the founder of the evolution of electronic health records in the region and was leader of several IT-projects for the last ten years. His main working area is user driven innovation, evidence-based medicine, quality management, connecting health- IT cooperation with GP's and patients.

Jari Renko
Master of Science EE, CIO at Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), Finland

Jari Renko is the Chief Information Officer (CIO)  of Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District, a group of 20 hospitals providing specialist medical care to patients in Uusimaa area of southern Finland. With a degree in technology and engineering and a background in Telecommunications and Information sciences, Jari is constantly seeking new ways for applying information technology to help with the day-to-day running of a University Hospital. His special emphasis is on relieving clinicians from repetitive administrative tasks, increasing availability and transparency of flow of information while focusing on  patient safety. Jari is convinced that the most pressing challenge for information technology in today’s hospitals is making IT transparent, easy to use and readily available to support clinicians in their day-to-day tasks.

Dr. Anders Björklind, MD, PhD
CMO at County Council of Uppsala, Sweden

Anders Björklind is Chief Medical Officer at the Management Office of Uppsala County Council, Sweden. He is in charge of the regional EMR in Uppsala County Council and serves as medical advisor to its management. Anders is specialist in Clinical Bacteriology but no longer active in clinical work. Since the last 20 years, he has been active with management questions mainly concerning departments of clinical laboratories, radiology, anesthesiology and intensive care, departments of information technology and medical technology.

Prof. Xavier Pastor, MD
CMIO, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain

Xavier Pastor got his Doctorate in Medicine in 1987. He is Professor at the Medical School of the University of Barcelona since 1988 and attending physician at PICU of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Since 1996, Pastor serves as Chief Medical Information Officer. In this position, he acts as Project Leader in Electronic Patient Record implementation at Hospital Clínic. Since 2005 he is responsible for the implementation of clinical information interoperability in a regional healthcare network in the Barcelona city among different providers. Xavier Pastor has been main researcher in several EU funded projects, such as “All-Net PicuBook”, “Structuring Content for Online Publishing Environments” (SCOPE), “INBIOMED”. Actual focus of interest is the Problem-Oriented EPR in Disease Management. Since 2003, he is participating as Professor in two international Master Courses about Health Information Management developed by the Erasmus University (Rotterdam) and Luigi Bocconi University (Milano). Pastor is member of the Spanish Society of Information and Health (SEIS) and the Catalan Forum of Information and Health acting as its President since 2008. He was the Scientific Director of the EU eHealth week organized in Barcelona by the Spanish and Catalan Governments, the European Commission and HIMSS Europe in 2010.

Dr. Illka Kunnamo, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, EBM Guidelines & EMBeDS at Duodecim, Finland

Illka Kunnamo developed the idea of Evidence-Based Medicine Guidelines, a comprehensive electronic guideline database, and has been its editor-in-chief since 1988. He serves as a general practitioner in Central Finland and as Adjunct Professor of general practice at the University of Helsinki. He has been involved in several projects on medical informatics and the organization of primary care. In 2002 he led the team that produced the plan for the development of a nationwide, standardized electronic health record for Finland. Presently he develops a comprehensive multilingual decision support service (Evidence-Based Medicine electronic Decision Support, EBMeDS, www.ebmeds.org) utilizing the key data sets in electronic health records.

Dr. Zafar Chaudry, MD, MSc, MBA
CIO Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, UK

Dr. Chaudry holds a doctorate degree in Medicine from Ross University (USA), a MSc in Health Care Policy and Management from the University of Birmingham (UK), a MSc in Information Systems Management from the University of Salford (UK) and a MBA for Aston University (UK). He is a professional member of the British Medical Association and HIMSS, holds Chartered Status from the British Computer Society and is a level 3 Health Informatics Specialist. Zafar has over 15 years of cutting-edge experience in the implementation of healthcare information systems and information technology (IT) in managed care settings spanning acute care hospitals, clinics, multi-specialty group practices and software companies in the USA at Director / CIO / CEO level. Dr Chaudry was awarded CIO of the Year (2008) from TECHWORLD (UK) in association with CIO magazine. Zafar was recently named by Government Computing (2010, UK) as one of the top 100 influential leaders in UK public sector IT (Kable 100).

Karl A. Stroetmann, MBA, PhD
Senior Research Fellow, Empirica, Germany

Karl A. Stroetmann M.B.A. (FU Berlin, Germany) Ph.D. (UBC, Vancouver, Canada) is Senior Research Fellow with Empirica Communication & Technology Research in Bonn, Germany. Empirica has established itself as a leading European Institute with a broad understanding of policy, strategic, business and socio-economic issues surrounding eHealth. Karl has been a consultant to the European Parliament & Commission, OECD, WHO, ESA, national governments, global industrial players as well as healthcare service providers. He was / is principal or co-investigator of European and trans-Atlantic projects on eHealth policy and strategic issues, on market validation, business development, and socio-economic impact assessment.

John P. Hoyt, FACHE, FHIMSS
Executive Vice President, HIMSS Analytics, USA

John P. Hoyt is Executive Vice President, Organizational Services at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the largest U.S. not-for-profit healthcare association focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology. HIMSS represents approximately 36,000 individual members, more than 500 corporate members and nearly 30 not-for-profit organizations that share its mission. Mr. Hoyt is responsible for providing executive leadership and direction to HIMSS Analytics where he also provides direction for all Stage 6 and Stage 7 validations worldwide.

Throughout his healthcare career, Hoyt has been instrumental in defining business and IT strategy as well as selecting, implementing and integrating mission-critical healthcare information systems across the enterprise. Before joining HIMSS, Hoyt served in Executive Management and Chief Information Officer positions within various healthcare organizations accumulating in over 22 years of hospital executive committee leadership. Mr. Hoyt served in consultancy practices, including: IBM Healthlink Services and First Data Health Systems Group.

Hoyt holds a BSBA in Economics from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and an MHA from St. Louis University in Missouri. He is a HIMSS Fellow and a Fellow and active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

Dr. Peter Curry
Consultant Anaesthetist & Clinical Lead for eHealth, NHS Fife, Scotland

Peter qualified from St Georges Hospital Medical School in London in 1980 and after initially following a career in Paediatrics turned to Anaesthesia and Intensive Care as his main clinical interests. Consultant appointment in 1994 took him North to Scotland and he has worked there as a Consultant Anaesthetist ever since.

His interest in computing and information management started young and he took a year out of his medical training to gain a B.Sc. at University College London focusing on Computer Science and in particular application in Physiological measurement. During his training career he left various programmes and solutions running in various places e.g. working out customized parenteral feeding regimes for neonates and staffing rotas etc.

Following appointment in Fife it was not very long before the Chief Executive requested consideration of taking on the role of clinical advisor for IT – part time. This has progressed over the years through a panopoly of names including IM&T etc. to the current situation where he is part time Clinical Lead for eHealth for the NHS Fife region.

This has brought involvement in many projects both locally but also nationally Scotland wide and sometimes further afield. Currently Peter is Chair of the National (Scotland) SCI Store, NHS Mail & National Theatre System Boards and sits on a number of other key national groups e.g. the Clinical Change Leadership Group and most recently key involvement in a developing a national project to redesign information exchange and operation of eyecare across Scotland.

Hopefully he brings an in depth understanding of the operation, benefits and disadvantages of information management and eHealth solutions together with an understanding of working at the sharp end delivering Health Care to patients.

Dr. Hans Nielsen Hauge, MD, CMIO Helse Sor-Ost, Norway

Hans Nielsen Hauge, MD, MHA, is specialist in Neurosurgery and CMIO for the South East Region of Norway. He studied at University of Vienna, Austria, and University of Oslo, Norway. He received his Education as a neurosurgeon at University of Oslo, Norway, University of Tromsoe, Norway, and University of Lund, Sweden. Hans Nielsen Hauge has 20 years of experience with clinical ICT-systems and a special interest in EHR-systems and systems for regulating surgical activity in operation theatres. He is Member of national groups in Norway working with clinical ICT-systems and leader of the department for e-health in the South East Region of Norway.