Keynote Speakers

Pre-Conference

Dirk Van den Steen

Dirk Van den Steen is an economist working at the European Commission’s Directorate General For Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE ) as Deputy Head of the unit covering the performance of national health systems. Prior to joining the Commission in 2009, Dirk worked at the actuarial department of the Belgian public payer organisation RIZIV/INAMI dealing with the database architecture of hospital billing/clinical information, the Belgian Healthcare Knowledge Centre (KCE) as a health economist involved with health technology assessment (HTA) and with IMS Health (now called IQVIA) as a consultant in pharmaco-economic modelling for the pharmaceutical industry. At the European Commission in the past Dirk has been involved in the development of the Cross-border Healthcare Directive, notably working on the mutual recognition of cross-border prescriptions as well as the assessment of national health systems. In the area of medical products at the European Commission Dirk also worked at the European Commission DG for Competition on antitrust enforcement in the domain of pharmaceuticals, devices and health services as well as on the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, notably with regard to access to affordable medicines. Most recently, Dirk was in particular involved in the assessment of proposed health system investments by Member States under the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Conference

Damiaan Denys

Damiaan Denys is professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry (AmsterdamUMC) at the University of Amsterdam (UVA) in The Netherlands. He studied Philosophy and Medicine at the University of Leuven and obtained his doctorate cum laude from Utrecht University with a dissertation entitled On certainty: studies in obsessive compulsive disorder. His scientific research is characterized by a translational approach, making use of clinical psychiatry, philosophy and fundamental neurosciences. A particular focus of his research is the development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for psychiatric disorders. He received in 2020 the IgNobel prize for medicine for his discovery of Misophonia.

In his Ghent EFPC key-note he will focus on the content of his last book “Het tekort van het teveel” which describes the shortcomings of today’s psychiatric care and health care in general. Have a look at one of his previous inspiring speeches at the TedX with the title “anxious to learn”.

Hans Kluge

Dr Hans Kluge is a Belgian-trained medical doctor with a master’s degree in public health. Having worked in Somalia, Liberia and Siberia (in the prison system), and been based in the WHO Country Office in Myanmar and in the WHO Office of the Special Representative of the Director-General in the Russian Federation, Dr Kluge has a broad background in health systems, public health and infectious diseases.

He moved to WHO/Europe in 2009, beginning as unit head for country policies and systems and has since worked as the Special Representative of the Regional Director to prevent and combat M/XDR-TB in the WHO European Region and since 2010 as Director, Division of Health Systems and Public Health.

Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge began his term as WHO Regional Director for Europe on 1 February 2020, following his nomination by the WHO Regional Committee for Europe and appointment by the WHO Executive Board.

He has 25 years of experience in medical practice and public health in numerous settings around the world. Having qualified in medicine, surgery and obstetrics from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1994, he began his career as a family doctor in Belgium.

Maria van den Muijsenbergh

Prof. Dr. Maria van den Muijsenbergh (1956) is general practitioner for over 35 years and researcher at the department of Primary and Community care at Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and at Pharos, the Dutch centre of expertise on health disparities. Her chair on “health disparities and person centered integrated primary care” focusses on the possible contribution of primary care in reducing existing socio-economic and ethnic health disparities, and how healthcare best can be tailored to the needs of vulnerable patients , like migrants or persons with limited health literacy. To achieve this, person centred instead of disease centred healthcare is the key, with a focus on and in collaboration with the wider community, healthcare and social services – thus integrated care.

She is involved in national and international community oriented research projects and has ample experience in (participatory) research with vulnerable groups, with a focus on refugees and other migrants. On this topic she acts occasionally as external advisor for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). She was founder and chair for 10 years of the WONCA special interest group on migrant care and international health, and member of the NAPCRG special interest group on refugee and immigrant healthcare.

Key-note topic: Integrated primary care in practice – how to proceed, the vision of EFPC!

Valeria Cappellato

Valeria Cappellato is a research fellow at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, and adjunct Professor in Sociology of Health at the University of Turin, Italy. She is an active member of the General Council of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, one of the philanthropic organizations that started the Transnational Forum on Integrated Community Care (TransForm) in 2018.

Valeria obtained her PhD in Comparative Social Research from the University of Turin with a dissertation focused on social and health care integration in the care pathways for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Italy. She has several scientific publications on social and health inclusion, family health services, and women studies. Her research interests include chronic conditions, Long Term Care, ageing and health-care policies, care practices and organization. Issues related to inequality and rights of vulnerable groups are central to her research, covering various areas from discrimination based on sexual orientation to gender studies, from care work to access to health care services.

Key-note topic: Transnational Forum on Integrated Community Care (TransForm)

Menia Koukougianni

Menia Koukougianni is the co-founder and manager of NGO KARKINAKI, Awareness for Childhood and Adolescent Cancer, an advocacy organization, founded by parents in 2015.

As a parent advocate, she is a board member of the Pan European Network for Care of Survivors after Childhood and Adolescent Cancer (PanCare), member of the Childhood Cancer International Europe (CCI Europe), member of the children’s medicine working party of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (EFGCP) and member of the Data Advisory Group of EURORDIS.

She is also member at the Patients Expert Group of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and member of the Scientific Advisory Group of Oncology of the European Medicines Agency (EMA)

Recently, she became a member at the AMR Patients Group of Health First Europe and member of the AMR Stakeholders Network.

Key-note topic: Integrated Community care from the patient/caregiver perspective