Final Conference
On Thursday, 20 May 2021 the TO-REACH project held its Final Conference, ‘Implementing and transferring innovations across health systems’. The conference brought together high-level speakers from the WHO, the European Commission and Ministries of Health, as well as project partners, academia, NGOs and the public at large to discuss the work done by the project over the past five years and the future of health systems and service research.
With over 230 attendees and an impressive speaker line-up, the conference was the perfect chance to reflect on the challenges health systems are facing, the achievements of TO-REACH including its Strategic Research Agenda and Policy Briefs, but also to look forward at the Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems that the project helped building.
Programme
Master of Ceremony: Mr. George Valiotis, Executive Director at the European Health Management Association (EHMA)
Opening session – Health systems and services in times of COVID-19
- Dr. Hans Kluge, Regional Director for Europe at the World Health Organization (WHO)
- Ms. Maya Matthews, Head of Unit – Performance of national health systems, DG SANTE, European Commission
- Dr. Vesna Kerstin Petrič, Director-General of Public Health Directorate at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia
- Prof. Walter Ricciardi, Principal Investigator and Coordinator of the TO-REACH project
Moderated by Dr. Josep Figueras, Director at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
SESSION 2: What are key priorities when studying service and policy innovation in health systems?
Keynote address by Dr. Johan Hansen, Senior Researcher at NIVEL, The Netherlands
Panel discussion:
- Prof. Silvio Brusaferro, President at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), Italy
- Dr. Claudia Habl, Deputy Head of the Health Economics Department, Austrian Public Health Institute (GÖG)
- Dr. Taina Mäntyranta, Director at the Department for Steering of Healthcare and Social Welfare at the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health
Moderated by Dr. Nick Fahy, Expert Adviser on innovation and implementation at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, UK
SESSION 3: What do we know about transferring service and policy innovations between health systems?
Keynote address by Prof. Ellen Nolte, Professor of Health Services and Systems Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Panel discussion:
- Prof. Karine Chevreul, Director of the ECEVE team at INSERM, France
- Ms. Valentina Polylas, Director at European Regional and Local Health Authorities (EUREGHA), Belgium
Moderated by Dr. Nick Fahy, Expert Adviser on innovation and implementation at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, UK
Remarks by the North American Partners:
- Dr. Arlene S. Bierman, Director at the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
- Dr. Rick Glazier, Scientific Director at the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
SESSION 4: What’s next? The future of health systems and service research
- Keynote address by Ms. Irene Norstedt, Director – People Directorate, DG RTD, European Commission
- Comment by Ms. Sabrina Montante, National Institute of Health of Italy – Italian Representative within the MS-AC Core Group for the Transforming Health and Care Systems Partnership