Featured Speakers

Thomas Dijohn is currently serving as the Vice-President Asia pacific at Dacadoo, a leading Swiss technology company. The company has developed a unique digital health and lifestyle platform. The core of the Platform is the dacadoo Health Score which is based on more than 70M man-years of clinical studies and has taken more than 5 years to develop and refine by a team of technologists, clinicians and mathematicians.
In 2015 Thomas was on a 12 months’ secondment to Sanofi – the world’s 5th largest pharmaceutical company – as Intrapreneur-in-Residence to develop and implement a clinical behavioural diagnostic tool for the management of people with chronic conditions and for prevention in general. There he worked with universities and healthcare professionals.

David is an entrepreneur, executive and advisor specializing in technology commercialization and early stage ventures for medical device and wearable technologies. From 2005 to 2012, David was the founding CEO, and long term CTO of the ASX listed Simavita where he brought to market a world first “wearable” wireless continence monitoring technology for residential aged care. In 2012-2013, David advised Saluda Medical in relation to the raising of a combined total of $23m in new funds as part of their spin-out from NICTA, Australia’s national ICT lab. David currently heads the medical device division at ETPL, the commercialization arm of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) that manages the technology transfer and funding to proof of concept work. He is currently focusing on the development of devices in the areas of brain-computer interface, neurostimulation and wearable sensors.

Evert Jan Hoijtink (1956) is Founder and CEO of Software as a Service company Portavita B.V. (www.portavita.com). Portavita was established in 2002 and has over 50 employees. Their customers are over 70 medical institutions with 500.000 included patients with a chronic condition like Diabetes, COPD/Asthma, Cardio Vascular Risk Management or Anticoagulation. Portavita is currently active in The Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Curacao and Suriname.

Portavita considers itself market leader in the field of patient Self Management with over 100.000 active users in The Netherlands. He is also Founder and Director of big medical data storage & retrieval technology company MGRID BV (www.mgrid.net) that was founded in 2009 and co-founder of Research-as-a-Service company RSRCH BV. Strategic partner and minority shareholder in both Portavita and MGRID is Deutsche Telekom Venture Fund AG.

In his role as Vice-Chairman of the Dutch Branch organization for IT Suppliers in the Health industry, Evert Jan was responsible for the portfolio Standardization from 2007 until 2013. He is also member of the CTH-commission “bio and databases” of the Medical University of Mainz (DE). He was trained in Economics at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences. After a function as Industrial Accountant at AkzoNobel, he worked mainly in the IT industry as sales at Honeywell-Bull, account manager and senior consultant at Capgemini and director of eCommerce at Oracle EMEA.
His core competence is business development, IT Architecture, Standardization and being an entrepreneur.

Professor Sophia E.J.A. de Rooij is a professor in Internal Medicine, specialized in Geriatric Medicine. She was registered as geriatrician (2000) and as internist (2002). In 2002 she set up a research group focusing on acute hospitalization in older people in the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Currently, dr de Rooij is headof the University Centre for Geriatric Medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.Since 2001 she obtained many grants for innovative health care projects concerning improving the cure and care of acutely admitted elderly hospital patients.Since that time her research group has widely expanded and conducted research on pathophysiology of delirium, polipharmacy, clinimetrics, disability, and falls.

In the past years, her focus has expanded to hospital outcomes, integrated care and health services research including innovative care strategies, starting off with several prospective cohort studies in Intensive care patients, in hip fracture patients and internal medicine patients leading to more insight in the consequences of acute hospitalization on daily functioning and quality of life and factors affecting the onset of disability in these populations. She had granted severallarge scalemulticentre studiesand she is principal investigator on all of these trials. These studies concern amongst others placebo-controlled trial on the effect of melatonin on the onset of delirium in hip fracture patients, a trial on transitional care for hospitalized older patients discharged home, a trial on care coordination in primary care and a trial on hospital at home for patients with dementia and delirium. She is (co-) author of >190 peer-reviewed publications and has supervised  >20 PhD theses.

Furthermore, she developed a serious health game in delirium, entitled Delirium Experience and is involved in a number of other e-health initiatives, the Vitality Navigator and Little Red Cape.Since 2013 she is also president of the Dutch Society of Internal Medicine.

With more than 28 years of experience in the Healthcare industry, Dr Low brings with him a strong background of leadership within the business and medical community. With his vast experience and contributions to the industry, Dr Low is listed in the ranks of Stanford Who’s who. Prior to his current role, Dr Low served as CEO of Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore. Through his leadership, the hospital established itself as a 6-star private healthcare provider, clinching 14 local and regional awards including the prestigious Asian Hospital Management Award as well as the the ‘National Work Redesign Model Company’ by Spring Singapore (governing agency for innovation in Singapore). Under him, revenues exceed 42% to over USD$100 million.

At IJsfontein, Lotte works on projects that have meaning and make a difference. As a Business Development Director her job is to translate complex customer questions at a strategic level to playful, interactive and meaningful concepts. Due to her background as a project manager, she is able to make a quick and realistic assessment of whether and how an idea can be realized. They finished products that include different accredited serious games for personnel training of health related issues.

Arnold Bos is EVP of International Business Development at ZorgDomein. His drive is to make healthcare accessible, globally. ZorgDomein’s technological framework for providing access to care is in scope of Arnold’s responsibility. Currently, nearly 90% of the Dutch GPs have access to healthcare through the ZorgDomein solutions. And, ZorgDomein interoperates with the majority of the healthcare information systems in use in the region to improve clinic efficiency and the patient’s healthcare experience.

Arnold strongly believes that results in healthcare can best be achieved by establishing partnerships. Earlier assignments included growing a global business portfolio of hosted contact centre services managing teams on various continents at BT Global Services. He also co-founded an international company (Ciphony) for delivering hosted ICT-services and he is member of the advisory board of Haarver.com.

Gerard Lenstra (1964) joined NOM, Investment & Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands as Business Developer in 1998 and is since 2007 responsible for NOM’s Life Sciences & Health activities.

NOM is a regional, government based organization working on enhancement of the northern region’s strengths. Within Life Sciences & Health, the Northern Netherlands focuses on Healthy Ageing. NOM operates closely together with the University Medical Centre in Groningen and the several research institutes and companies.

Gerard Lenstra brings more than 25 years of business experience and worked with a variety of companies and institutions helping them to develop coherent business strategies. Since February 2016 he is also chairman of the supervisory board of Quisper, a scientific platform which aims to facilitate research and development in the field of health, nutrition and wellbeing and to develop scientifically based products and services in the field of personalized nutrition.

Annet Bruil is an interaction and service designer at fuelfor, an experience design consultancy specialised in healthcare and co-located in Barcelona and Singapore. fuelfor develop award-winning products and services using a design thinking approach that they have specifically tailored for healthcare challenges. Their work in Singapore has supported a variety of teams from the private, public and third sectors. In 2010 they were invited by the Ministry of Health to run a design thinking workshop at HIF2010. In collaboration with the DesignSingapore Council, fuelfor has developed the healthcare curriculum of the Design Thinking and Innovation Academy, now the accredited training program for DT in Healthcare from the Workforce Development Agency.

Nicolette Tan is an Industrial Designer at the Office of Innovation, Eastern Health Alliance. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Industrial Design from National University of Singapore. She views design as empathy made tangible and has a deep understanding of how people interact with products, services and spaces. Nicolette has been involved in several social and health care projects and is passionate about how design can impact communities.

Dr Ow Chee Chung is currently the CEO of Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital. The hospital is in the midst of major redevelopment to build an Integrated Nursing Home and Community Hub. It will double both its inpatient and outpatient capacity. Dr Ow is a medical doctor by training with a Master in Business Administration (MBA, Surrey). He has held several leadership appointments in Public Service, VWO and in the restructured hospital and institution. He has a personal interest in the development of community care services.

Dr. Piravej has a unique experience of working as top executive across healthcare value chain in the last 18 years. After a successful academic and clinical career, Dr.Piravej decided to shift into healthcare management, started with a business turnaround mission in health insurance business, followed by a restructuring job at a multinational pharmaceutical trade organization, then strategic management role for a Thai leading hospital group including planning, opening and operating its first premium  international hospital in Bangkok. Dr. Piravej is also the Executive Board Member of Thai Medical Informatics Association and Governing Council Member of HIMSS Asia Pacific.

Rhenu oversees the healthcare practice for Frost & Sullivan in Asia Pacific. She has almost 20 years of working experience in the healthcare industry and has advised clients on pipeline development, strategy, acquisitions, pharmaco-economics, policy and new business ventures in all segments of the healthcare industry. Her strengths lie in an in-depth understanding of healthcare markets across the world from government healthcare structures and policy to end user and market evaluations. As one of the region’s leading healthcare experts, Rhenu’s expert opinions have been heard at private client seminars and industry conferences, as well as in the media like BBC, Bloomberg, CNN and CNBC.

Irene heads the Pharmacy Department in the area of Medication Safety, Clinical Quality and Audit, Pharmacy Automation, Clinical Pharmacy Service, Research and Education. Irene has recently rolled out the Outpatient Pharmacy Automation project for Patient Safety, with funding support from the Ministry of Health and the project
has won several local and international awards. Concurrently, she is leading the recent implementation of Pyxis Automation Dispensing cabinets in KKH Delivery suites, Children Intensive Care Unit, Ward 55 and 56.

Dr Dirk also holds positions as Adjunct Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore and Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. His implementation, research and teaching focuses on the diffusion of quality and patient safety innovations and include business process and systems redesign, human
factors and ergonomics, and performance benchmarking. He holds an MSc in Health Policy and Management from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a PhD in Public Health from University of Amsterdam.

Well-known in the social network society as ‘Dr Carebear Samitivej.’ Narinthorn is committed to helping patients to change their lifestyle to improve their health and to avoid illness through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. He is also a host on TV Health Programs and a guest speaker on Health promotion and Primary prevention events for major corporate companies.

Professor Gordon is a renowned researcher in the field of 3D bio-printing and material science. His strong commitment to building collaborations has led to fruitful relationships with many renowned scientists, clinicians and industry leaders, most notably, Professor Graeme Clark, inventor of the Bionic Ear. A passionate communicator, he is in-demand as a keynote speaker at conferences around the world.

Mr Paul S D’Urso is a consultant neurosurgeon at the Epworth Hospital in Melbourne Australia. Mr D’Urso has extensive experience in research, clinical teaching, and medico-legal opinion. He is internationally recognized as a leading Australian neurosurgeon, scientist, and innovator. He invented the technology of BioModelling with
groundbreaking PhD research and went on to found Anatomics, one of the world’s most innovative medical device companies. Mr D’Urso completed a fellowship at the Cambridge University Neurosurgery unit and a clerkship at Harvard University. Mr D’Urso has published and presented over 120 scientific papers and holds multiple international patents. He has won over 25 prestigious research awards and prizes.

Joanne is a highly experienced Health Informatician who has expertise in a wide range of areas. Specializing in patient journey modeling she has significant experience in managing healthcare improvement/ transformation projects involving both technical and clinical stakeholders using various technologies and involving complex organizational cultures. Joanne was responsible for designing the integration of four disparate clinical services into one integrated patient journey for the recently opened North West Cancer Centre in Tamworth NSW.

Dr Su Le is currently the Chief Executive Officer at City International Hospital, Vietnam.

Dr Paul Savage is the Research Director of the CSIRO Biomedical Manufacturing Program which aims to work collaboratively with existing companies in the Australian biomedical industry to develop new and innovative devices, materials and processes to improve productivity and efficiency, and create investment and economic opportunities.

Joined the Omni Hospitals group as their Managing Director with a clear mandate of wanting to be market leaders and opinion makers in the field of healthcare service delivery. He worked as the Regional CEO for the Apollo Hospitals Group for the last 7 years, where the assignment was for strategizing and establishing the network of hospitals across the state of Karnataka and developing markets in the US, Europe and South East Asia.

He took over as Chief Executive Officer of the Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital in 2002. The hospital is a public-private partnership- a joint venture between the government of Karnataka and Apollo. It is the only successful public-private partnership venture in the country, and has been model for study by the University of Helsinki and the Management School of the University of Delhi. Since 2005, he has served as the Chief Executive Officer at the 300-bed Apollo Hospital Bangalore. During this time, it underwent one the most successful Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation processes, which has become the benchmark for the rest of the group’s hospitals to follow. JCI is the gold standard of accreditation for healthcare organizations.