Keynote speakers

Linda Wauben

– Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Lecture: Innovation by co-creation: Designing healthcare technology together

Linda Wauben is research professor Healthcare Technology at Research Centre Innovations in Care at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. She studied Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, after which she obtained her PhD in 2010 on the subject of ‘Safety in the Operating Room’, in cooperation with Erasmus Medical Center. She currently focuses on the role of ‘human factors’ and technology in relation to safety, efficiency and quality of care. Since August 2014 she has been combining her position at Delft University of Technology with her work at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. She and her research group, study and design technical care innovations by means of co-research and user-centred co-design together with patients, care professionals and informal caregivers. The aim is to create healthcare technology to improve the quality of care and, to make life healthier, more pleasant and enjoyable through care innovations.

Theo Van Achterberg

– KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Lecture: Try Technology: An implementation challenge

Theo van Achterberg is a professor of quality of care at the KU Leuven Department of Public Health and Primary Care in Leuven, Belgium. He holds a BA in Nursing, an MSc in Health Sciences, an MSc in Epidemiology, and a PhD in Health Sciences.  
Improving the Quality of Healthcare and Implementation of Evidence-informed Practices are key topics in both his research and teaching.
Theo van Achterberg is a member of the Health Council of the Netherlands, and the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine. He is a Community leader within the International Honour Society of Nursing (STTI) and the current vice-president of the European Academy of Nursing Science (EANS).

Katrien Beeckman

UZ Brussel, Jette, Belgium; University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

Lecture: Born in Belgium Professionals

Katrien is trained as midwife (2001), obtained a master in health promotion (2004) and a PhD in social health sciences (2011). 

Her experience include: midwife at maternity and labour ward, researcher and docent first at university college Artevelde Hogeschool, after the PhD at the university college Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel; in March 2005 she started as assistant (0.5fte) at the VUB in the master management and policy making in health care at the department of Medical Sociology. She was successful in receiving her own PhD grant on antenatal care in Brussels, determinants of care trajectories (Innoviris 2006-2011).  After her PhD (2011) and currently, she started at the University Hospital UZ Brussel as coordinator of the Nursing and Midwifery research group, part of the department of Public Health at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).  From September 2013 she has a 0.1 research professorship at the VUB and 0.1 a guest professorship at the University of Antwerp.
The focus of her work is on the organisation of antenatal care, especially for social vulnerable women. Besides implementing new /adapted models of care in the perinatal period, she developed tools for screening on psychosocial vulnerability and measuring adequacy of antenatal care. The concept of co-creation and implementation science are central in the research work of NUMID. Stakeholders and care providers are closely involved in our action research. Examples are implementation of short hospital stay after a delivery, psychosocial support program for vulnerable women antenatal and postnatal (transmural).  In 2018 we started the Born In Belgium Professionals project (www.borninbelgiumprofessionals.be), financed by the National Institute of Health and disability. A digital platform including a screeningstool for psychosocial vulnerability leading to personalized and integrated care pathways were developed in co-creation with over 80 partners in the Brussels perinatal care field. Implementation in the Flanders and the Walloon Region is planned for 2022.

Lotta Olsson

– The Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, Sweden

LectureOpportunities and challenges of implementing a digital agenda in healthcare from a policymaking perspective in Sweden

In my assignment in the Swedish parliament, I was working with AI issues. AI issues I believe will be some of the really important topics for many years to come. Important because they can create opportunities to both rationalize and improve the quality of health care. Futhermore, to compile multi-data that makes it possible to reach new achievements. However, one of the challenges will be that as many groups of the population as possible will be able to use the technology. 

Assignments outside the Swedish Parliament and the Government

2006–2010  Member of the local council with responsibility for education issues. Chair of the high school board in Orebro.

1999–2006  Head Nurse of thoracic surgical department

1995–1999  Head Nurse of postoperative department

Mirjam Lukasse

– University of South-Eastern Norway, Borre, Norway

– Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

LectureAn app for everything! Experiences from a randomised controlled trial testing an app for women with gestational diabetes

Mirjam Lukasse is a professor in midwifery at the University of South-Eastern Norway and Oslo Metropolitan University. Lukasse completed her nursing education (1982) in the Netherlands and midwifery (1984) and MSc in advanced clinical practice (1998) in the United Kingdom. She has practised midwifery in England, the Netherlands, Pakistan and Norway. Lukasse defended her PhD thesis on Childhood abuse and pregnancy and childbirth in 2011 at the University of Tromsø, Norway. Since then she has continued her research within the field of violence against women and in the general field of midwifery. Topic of research include, slow progress in labour, induction of labour, information (web-site) for women at home in the latent fase, an app for women with gestational diabetes, a video promoting safety behaviours for pregnant women, the use of pudendal pain relief, a model of continuity of care in Palestine and interventions for women experiencing domestic violence in Nepal.

Annalisa Smythe

– Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom

LectureDoes on line peer support for nurses have a future?

Analisa is currently research matron at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. She completed her PhD an evaluation of a person-centred training intervention for nurses working in Nursing Homes in 2020. She has an MSc in Advanced Nursing Practice, a PG Cert in Higher Education and an MPhil (Research). She has been awarded five Research Grants since 2010. Most recently she was awarded a grant to conduct a study to develop and evaluate a sustainable model of online peer support to improve retention of newly qualified nurses. Analisa qualified as a Registered Mental Health Nurse in 1996 and has worked with in Research for the past twenty years.

Mats Eriksson

– Örebro University, Sweden

LectureFacetime with your baby – new technologies in neonatal and pediatric care

Mats Eriksson is a specialist nurse in intensive care nursing, and a professor in nursing sciences with focus on paediatric nursing. His clinical experience since over 30 years is in neonatal intensive care. His main research focus is on pain and stress in newborn infants, but he also works with pain in older children and adolescents, quality of life in persons with chronic diseases, and trust in and adherence to the child vaccination program.

Pascal Coorevits

– Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Lecture: The quality triangle in eHealth applied to nursing informatics

Professor of Medical Informatics and Statistics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences –  Department of Public Health and Primary Care – of the Ghent University in Belgium with primary research interests in the domain of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and oriented towards various aspects of quality labelling and certification of EHRs, EHR data and mHealth apps (quality criteria, data quality indicators, quality labelling and certification models, tools/methodologies for EHR evaluation and conformance testing, EHR semantic interoperability aspects, re-use of EHR data for research purposes). Lecturer-in-charge of several courses in biostatistics, methodology, evidence based medicine and medical informatics. Director of the Belgian not-for-profit organisation RAMIT (Research in Advanced Medical Informatics and Telematics), an R&D spin-off platform of the Ghent University. Vice President Research & Development of the European Institute for Health Records (EuroRec) and Executive Board Member of the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD). Participation in several EU -, national – and transatlantic eHealth research projects (e.g. ASSIST, EHR-Implement,  EHR-Q TN,  ARGOS,  HITCH, Antilope, EHR4CR, SemanticHealthNet, EURECA, EXPAND, …).

Since 2010 responsible in Belgium for the software audits of EHRs for general practitioners, physiotherapists and home care nurses, in cooperation with the Belgian eHealth platform.