The integration of health and social care through digitalisation is a grand challenge and one that many countries are seeking to tackle. There is significant potential to learn from international efforts. Our panel of European experts will explore how various countries have approached the integration of health and social care, the key challenges they have encountered and the lessons they have learned along the way.
| 12:00 | Registration, with refreshments, open for in-person attendees |
| 12:30 | Introductions | Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh: Director, Usher Institute |
| 12:35 | Introduction to panellists | Dr Kathrin Cresswell: Senior Lecturer, Usher Institute |
| 12:40 | Background and context | All panellists |
| 13:00 | Key challenges encountered and lessons learned | All panellists |
| 13:25 | Closing remarks | Professor Robin Williams: Director, ISSTI |
| 13:30 | Close |
Panellists
Tinja Lääveri, Apotti
Tinja Lääveri, MD, PhD, specialist in internal Medicine, works currently as a leading expert in specialized healthcare at Apotti, which is a publicly own non-profit IS provider for Epic in Finland. She also works as a postdoctoral researcher in the department of computer science at Aalto university. Before her IS career which started in 2010, she worked in public hospitals providing specialized care and continues clinical work in the infectious diseases clinic (approximately 15% of working time) of HUS Helsinki University Hospital. She was the first chair and current member of the eHealth committee of Finnish Medical Association. She was involved already in the procurement and implementation phases of the current IS. Her research interests are in the infectious disease field travellers’ diarrhoea, resistant intestinal microbes and children’s diarrhoea in developing countries, and in the computer science field end-user experiences of health and social care ISs and end-user participation in the development of ISs.
Jordi Piera Jiménez, Catalan Health Service
Jordi, BSc, MSc, PhD is dually trained in Computing Science Engineering (BSc) and in Business Management (BSc) by the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Further to that, he also holds a MSc in Telemedicine and E-health delivered by the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and a PhD on the economic evaluation of digital health innovations under the Information and Knowledge Society doctoral programme also from UOC.
He started working at the service provision in an integrated care organization back in year 2000, first as an analyst and software developer inside the Information Technologies Department where he actively participated in the development and implementation of the Electronic Medical and Social Care Records and in several research and innovation projects.
In the academic field, Jordi is visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Udine (Italy), associate professor of the Faculty of Telecommunications, Informatics and Multimedia at the Open University of Catalonia and Co-director of the Executive Master’s in Digital Health at the University of Barcelona. His research interests are on integrated care delivery models and in the design, implementation, and evaluation of digital health solutions. Jordi is also leader of the research group Digitalization for the Sustainability of the Healthcare System at the IDIBELL research institute.
After many years at the service provision side, Jordi moved to the Catalan Health Service where he is currently leading the Digital Health Strategy Office and the development of a new Electronic Health Record which will be built around the paradigm of open platforms and standards.
Silja Voolma, Head of Behavioral Science at Newel Health
Dr. Silja-Riin Voolma is a University of St Andrews and Cambridge-educated health psychologist with over a decade of experience in designing behaviour change interventions and implementing digital health products and services across the startup, private, and government sectors globally. Silja served as the Head of Personalised Medicine in her birth country of Estonia and continues to work with the Estonian Genome Centre to bring genetic data into Estonian primary care. She is the Head of Behavioral Science at Newel Health, a lecturer in health psychology and behavioral science at the University of Tartu, and an advisor to several digital health startups in the UK and EU. Silja has designed behavior change interventions across multiple health experiences, including type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, addiction disorders, neurological disorders, and mental health, and applies a human-centred approach to designing interventions in intersectional contexts of change.
Gaby Wildenbos, Nictiz
Gaby Wildenbos (Phd) has a background in Medical Informatics and has combined policy, research and project-oriented work on digital health in several healthcare organisations. She currently works at Nictiz on several strategic themes, such as the European Health Data Space.
