Tim Hynes, Chief Information Officer, AIB and board member of the HSE
Tim is an executive with a broad range of experience across a number of disciplines that include brand marketing, operations, change management, and technology. He has 30 years’ experience in blue chip organisations where he has held both regional and global roles, leading teams spread across more than 40 countries. Tim holds a Masters in Executive Leadership from Ulster University, is a qualified bank director, and is a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society. He is currently the Chief Innovation Officer for AIB, and a board member of the HSE.
Dr. Natalie Cole, Head of Innovation, Tallaght University Hospital
Dr. Cole is the Head of Innovation at Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin. In this role she is responsible for leading the establishment of an Innovation Centre in one of the largest academic teaching hospitals in Ireland. She joined TUH in July 2021 and has already played a pivotal role in developing an extensive pipeline of innovation projects.
Dr. Cole has over 20 years national & international experience in Health Research & Innovation. Dr. Cole initially pursued a career in academic research and was Assistant Professor of Neurogenetics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago. On returning to Ireland she supported the development of the spin-out company Neuropath at Trinity College Dublin. She has extensive change and project management experience and was Change and Benefits lead for the Office of the CEO of the HSE and delivered large complex healthcare projects. She has a passion for the translation of innovative projects for the benefit of patients and service users.
Lars is the founder and CEO of the Danish executive advisory firm, Miles Ahead, delivering real-world expertise in value-based procurement, public-private innovation and strategic business development to medtech, pharma and healthtech companies.
Lars has more than 13 years’ experience from strategic public procurement within healthcare. He was New Business Development Manager at Corporate Procurement in The Capital Region of Denmark – a group of 11 public hospitals (app. 8,500 beds) around the city of Copenhagen, accounting for more than 30% of the total Danish healthcare system. In that position his responsibilities included innovation and business development within the group’s procurement activities (€1.5bn annual volume) as well as strategic partnerships within public-private innovation and value-based healthcare. From 2007 to 2017 he was Lead Strategic Buyer with the group and responsible for the procurement category of medical equipment and also leading the group’s investment strategy for medtech and life science technology. Lars has led more than 150 public procurement tenders/negotiations and holds a national track record of successfully completing 7 large-scale public-private innovation projects with industry partners like Medtronic, GE Healthcare, Roche Pharma, Brainlab, Varian Medical Systems and Siemens Healthineers. During the COVID-19 pandemic he was Head of Domestic Manufacturing with the National Operative Staff (NOST).
He is also a leading promoter of value-based procurement and internationally recognised for pioneering next-generation public procurement to leverage healthcare innovation. In this role he is an experienced key-note speaker and has delivered presentations at several national and international conferences. Among these, talks for organizations such as G20, ICHOM, European Value-Based Procurement Conference, HTAi, MEDiT (Taiwan), International VBHC Roundtable, The Conference Board of Canada and The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 2019 Lars Dahl Allerup co-founded Rethink Value – an international value-based healthcare think-tank in Denmark. The ambition of Rethink Value is to inspire thinkers who practice and apply value-based healthcare.
Fran Thompson, Chief Information Office, HSE
Fran is also CEO of eHealth Ireland enabling the digital transformation of Ireland’s health service.
He has over 25 years health ICT leadership experience and has a comprehensive understanding and practical application of transformation and change management within the health sector. Before his appointment as CIO, Fran was the Programme Director for the Strategic e-Health Programme. He has been involved with all aspects of ICT and has played a leading role in delivering various projects and programmes including hospital administration and hospital clinical systems, primary care messaging solutions and health finance solutions.
Fran led the creation and set up of the ICT Project Management Office within the HSE and has responsibility for delivering a number of key strategic e-Health programmes including the electronic health record for the country and the Individual Health Identifier.
James Hawkins, Director of Product Delivery, NHS Digital (interim)
James is currently acting Executive Director of Product Delivery at NHS Digital, leading a team of over 1000 staff responsible for the delivery of national digital products for the NHS.
He is an experienced executive with a track record of leading and delivering across a range of sectors. Achievements range from the introducing of the NHS App and the 111 Online service, the London Congestion Charging Scheme during his time with Deloitte, to his central role in the security turnaround team for the 2012 London Olympics. As Executive Director for Strategy he was responsible for the digital aspects of the Long-Term Plan and that the NHS Digital Strategy and its annual business plan aligned with the strategic direction and priorities of government and the health and care system. James has a Master of Engineering from Heriot Watt University and is a graduate of the HM Government’s Major Project Leadership Academy at the Said Business School, University of Oxford.
Marion Briggs, Sustainability Manager, HealthBeacon
HealthBeacon is a health technology company based in Dublin that makes smart tools for managing medication. A passionate environmentalist and sustainability advocate, Marion joined the HealthBeacon team in 2020 to help launch their Green Labs facility, which processes injection waste in a more circular and sustainable manner. She also oversees the implementation of HealthBeacon’s sustainability goals and represents them in the newly founded supply chain non-profit, the Alliance to Zero. In addition, she volunteers as Chair of the Board of Friends of the Earth Ireland, which allows her to contribute to the NGO community while keeping her finger on the pulse of what is happening in sustainability more broadly.
Miriam Roche, Interim Director of Informatics/CIO, St James’s Hospital, Dublin
Prior to taking up this role, Miriam was the Engagement and Delivery Lead at the hospital where she led a portfolio of transformation projects and contributed to the hospital’s digital strategy. She has a proven track record of successfully delivering complex projects, including the hospital’s EPR and e-Prescribing implementation. She is passionate about improving patient care through access to information and digital insights. Miriam holds an MSc. in Digital Health Transformation, a Professional Diploma in Creativity, Innovation and Leadership and a Diploma in Leadership in Quality and Safety
Dr Roisin Molloy, CEO & Founder of TriMedika
Roisin is a biochemist with over 25 years’ experience in product research & development, sales and marketing of medical products into international hospital markets.
TriMedika is an innovative medical technology company that provides the most accurate clinical devices for hospitals worldwide. TRITEMP Non-Contact Thermometer removes the need for plastic consumables from routine temperature measurement, offering cost and time savings (economic sustainability), and eliminating plastic waste (environmental sustainability) benefiting the healthcare system and the users. As there is no contact with the patient the thermometer reduces the risk of infection spread and there is no need to disturb the patient, ensuring patient comfort.
TRITEMP is a precision engineered tool, designed to reduce infection rates, as it never touches the patient and lowers total cost of ownership of a thermometer by one fifth, as it requires no plastic consumables, eliminating plastic waste.
TriTemp is made by an Irish manufacturer and moved fast to prioritise and mobilise thermometers to the HSE during Covid pandemic.
Professor Ronan Cahill, Professor of Surgery, UCD and the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital (MMUH)
Ronan was appointed in 2014 before taking over leadership of the section and subject of Surgery in UCD in 2017. In 2019, he was appointed Director of the Centre for Precision Surgery, UCD and the Digital Surgery Unit, MMUH. Ronan graduated MB,BAO,BCh (Hons) from University College Dublin in 1997 and then completed his basic and specialist surgical training in Ireland, gaining both MD by thesis (Health Research Board Clinical Research Fellow) and FRCS by examination. Thereafter, he was a clinical fellow at the IRCAD/EITS Institute in Strasbourg, France from 2007 to 2008 before moving to the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals as senior fellow and then honorary consultant and senior clinical researcher from 2008 to 2010. Ronan returned to Ireland in 2010 as consultant general surgeon (specialist interest in colorectal surgery) at Beaumont Hospital before moving to the Mater and UCD. He is a recipient of both the Bennett and Millen Medals (RCSI Millen Lecturer 2010) and was the ASGBI Robert Smith Lecturer in 2014. He has authored over 275 peer reviewed publications, seven book chapters and four National Guidelines.
Ronan has been an editorial board member of five indexed surgical journals, including Colorectal Disease and the European Journal of Surgical Oncology and is a former member of the SAGES Research Committee (SAGES Career Development Award recipient 2009). He has a major academic interest in Surgical Innovation and New Technologies and active basic science, clinical and device development research partnerships both nationally and internationally including the performance of phase 1, 2 and 3 trials aimed at advancing surgical practice. Most recently he is co-awardee and clinical lead of a major Disruptive Innovation and Technologies Fund (DTIF) award by the Irish Government (for a project entitled “The Future of Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment”, a consortium including UCD, RCSI, IBM Research and Dechiphex using artificial intelligence for decision support in surgery and pathology) as well as a EU Horizon 2020 consortium award (entitled PORSAV- Protecting Operating Room Staff Against Aerosolized Virus).
Dr. Sandra Hofmann, Head of Research for International Social Policy, WifOR Institute
Sandra is also part of the management team at the WifOR Institute, an independent economic research institute with extensive experience in health and life sciences. Sandra has been working at the institute since 2010. She gained extensive experience in applied economic and social research as a research assistant and later as Head of Research for Labour Markets. Her focus is on macroeconomic labour market research, sociopolitical analyses, the health and care economy, and the analysis of the effects of digitalisation on the national economy. With her comprehensive expertise Sandra is responsible for a large number of projects for a wide variety of public sector clients. She is also an author, lecturer at various universities, and an active speaker at numerous events.
Martin Curley, Director, Digital Transformation and Open Innovation, HSE
Martin is involved in helping enable the digital transformation of Ireland’s health service. Formerly, he was Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the HSE. Prior to joining the HSE Martin was Senior Vice President and group head for Global Digital Practice at Mastercard. Previously he was Vice President at Intel Corporation and Director/GM of Intel Labs Europe, Intel’s network of more than 50 research labs which he helped grow across the European region. He also served as a senior principal engineer at Intel Labs Europe leading Intel’s research and innovation engagement with the European Commission and the broader European Union research ecosystem. Prior to this Curley was Global Director of IT Innovation and Director of IT Strategy and Technology at Intel. Earlier in his Intel career, he held a number of senior positions for Intel in the United States and Europe. He also worked in research and management positions at GE in Ireland and Philips in the Netherlands.
Martin has a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and a master’s degree in business studies, both from University College Dublin, Ireland. He received his Ph.D. in information systems from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Curley is the author of eight books on technology management for value, innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, the British Computer Society and the Irish Computer Society. Martin is co-founder of the Innovation Value Institute at Maynooth University, a unique industry-academia collaboration driving research and development of advanced IT and Digital maturity frameworks. He was previously a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan Centre for Information Systems Research and a visiting research fellow at the CERN Open Lab in Geneva. He was the inaugural winner of the Engineers Ireland Innovation engineer of the year in 2006 and was jointly awarded European Chief Technology Officer of the year for 2015-2016.
Gary Boyle, Patient Advocate
Gary was born in Dublin and is married to Joan. They have two adult children, Daire and Bronwyn. Gary has a BSc Management (European Law) and has worked for over 20 years in HR in the semi-conductor industry.
Gary was diagnosed with ‘Young Onset’ Parkinson’s disease (PD) at the age of 44 in 2009 and by 2015 was forced to give up his job. Shocked by the lack of resources, Gary has become a passionate Patient Advocate and uses every opportunity available to promote a multi-disciplinary approach to PD. He is also a Board member of the European Parkinson’s Disease Association (EPDA). Keeping fit is now a way of life for Gary, with his motto: ‘I’m not cured but I am better’
Una Kearns, Founder, MyPatientSpace
Una a senior global technology leader with 25 years’ experience in both Ireland and Silicon Valley. She spent her career in technology and won many awards for innovation and bringing new products to market. She always thought she would have her own business one day and she decided to enter the eHealth space to improve patients’ and families’ experiences and help towards better outcomes. In 2017, Una founded myPatientSpace, a SaaS patient engagement product built for the global healthcare market. Its aim is to improve the healthcare experience of patients and families by enabling providers of all types to provide rich, smart engagement across a patient’s journey. myPatientSpace replaces paper-based education and non-curated internet sources with rich, personalized, curated micro-learning delivered exactly when the patient needs it, for improved decision making. Their smart automated and personalized care plans also help keep patients, families, and extended care teams engaged and connected with care no matter where they are – at home or in hospital. The product integrates with connected devices to support monitoring of patients and collecting patient reported outcomes and symptom checking. The company has grown rapidly since establishment and was awarded support under the Enterprise Ireland Competitive Startup Fund in December 2017. The following year, myPatientSpace made it to the final of the EIT European Digital and Medtech Health finals and won the Health Innovation Hub call for health innovation in Ireland. The product is now live with a number of customers across therapy areas from Orthopaedics and Sleep Apnoea and is starting new projects around new drug therapies and oncology.
Susan became CEO in November 2021. HealthTech Ireland is the independent trade association for manufacturers, developers and distributors of health technology products and solutions to the Irish health system. The provision of these products and solutions by HealthTech Ireland members, support and enable the healthcare system deliver on it’s day-to-day operations. HealthTech Ireland also actively supports the transformation and shaping of the future of healthcare both nationally and internationally. Susan has over 20 years’ experience and a proven track record in healthcare, holding executive positions with multi-national organisations, SME’s and med-tech start-ups. Susan is also a member of the Ireland Digital Health Leadership Steering Group led by the HSE Digital Transformation team. Through her own consulting company, Treacy Healthcare Consulting, Susan has also helped organisations develop and meet their strategic objectives both nationally and internationally. As a member of the Women in Technology and Science (WITS) Ireland Executive and the policy sub-committee, Susan is helping to support and empower women in STEM and helping to drive improvements in STEM policy in Ireland at government level. The common thread in Susan’s work is to help facilitate collaboration and partnerships to realise the value and synergies that can be created for the organisations she works with and society as a whole. Susan holds qualifications from Maynooth University, Queen’s University Belfast, the IMI and UCC.
Nicola Hickie, Regulatory & Policy Manager, Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA)
Nicola joined the HPRA in 2007 and is the Regulatory and Policy Manager within the medical devices department. Her key focus is on policy and legislative development, both at national and EU level and on stakeholder engagement and communications. Nicola was a national expert at the Council Working Party meetings on the revision of the medical mevices and IVD regulations and is a delegate of the Medical Device Coordination Group (MDCG) which aims to ensure an effective and harmonised implementation of the medical devices regulations.
Michelle Sullivan, Head of Public Affairs, UK & Ireland, Boston Scientific
Michelle has had a diverse career in pharmaceutical and medical devices, first working in the industry in 1990. A graduate biologist with a long-standing career in sales, management, marketing, and market development, she chose to re-train in Health Economics at York University, adding the value ‘spectacles’ and ‘hearing-aids’ she employs today when working with Boston Scientific, their customers, and various industry bodies. Michelle sits on the Board of HealthTech Ireland, leading the Market Access workstream.
She is in charge of one of the commercial EMEA workstream at Boston Scientific with regards to Environmental Sustainability and is currently completing a course in Sustainability in Business with the University of Cambridge. Michelle is Chair of the Sustainability group, and Vice-Chair of the Commercial Policy group at ABHI.
Jane Massy, Senior Business Consultant, SGS Ireland
SGS is the world’s largest inspection, testing and verification business and has operated in Ireland for over 40 years. In her role as Senior Consultant in SGS Ireland, Jane provides business strategy and service development guidance to senior management. She has specific responsibility to support medical device services and leads on sustainability service development and implementation. Jane joined SGS in 2018 following the purchase by SGS of abdi, the impact monitoring and evaluation business which she founded and ran for 12 years from Cambridge, UK. In that capacity, she worked across the globe supporting private and public sector businesses in retail, finance, healthcare (including the NHS), education, transport, broadcasting and many others to develop their economic and societal impact indicators, impact pathways and evaluation strategies. She is a strong supporter of HealthTech Ireland and collaborated on their Evaluation of Procurement Practice for Digital Health 2021 position paper.
Dr. John Sheehan, Radiologist, Clinical Director & Advisor, Healthcare Technologist, AI & AR, Mobile Medical Diagnostics, xWave Technologies and Ireland Digital Health Leadership Steering Group
John is a graduate of RCSI and qualified as a Radiologist in 2005 . He did fellowships in MRI (Body, Neuro & MSK) & Cardiovascular Imaging in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, 2006-2009 and was appointed Chief of Cardiovascular Imaging, NorthShore University Health System, Chicago in 2009.
John currently practices as a Consultant Radiologist in Blackrock Health (Hermitage & Blackrock Clinic’s) and Mobile Medical Diagnostics. His practice includes diagnostic and interventional radiology with cross sectional interests in cardiovascular, hepato-biliary, prostate, MSK and colonography.
John is the Clinical Director of Radiology in the Hermitage Clinic, Clinical Director of Mobile Medical Diagnostics and Clinical Advisor to xWave Technologies (xRefer).
He has a passionate accumulated knowledge and experience in existing and emerging technologies in radiology and wider healthcare, including cloud, AI and augmented reality to help innovate and influence technology policy, by integrating clinical, digital, healthcare providers & industry realms.
John is a member and Clinical Vice Chair of the Ireland Digital Health Leadership Steering Group (IDHLSG) led by Prof. Martin Curley, comprised of leading digital health entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, clinicians, patients, academics and others. The charter of the group is to agree, align and accelerate Ireland’s Digital Health Strategy & Action plan – Stay Left, Shift Left, 10x, enabling Ireland to leapfrog in digital health and overall health maturity. The core of the strategy is that digital technology provides an opportunity to provide 10x innovations or improvements, doing healthcare 10x better, faster, cheaper and increased capacity. The ultimate aim is to make Ireland a European leader in healthcare by 2025 and a global leader by 2030.
Miguel Coelho, Business Development Director, Oracle Health
Miguel has more than 25 years experience in Healthcare IT and Enterprise Solutions. He has held a variety of roles, from development and product management to presales and sales. He’s currently responsible for business development and sales of the Oracle Health solutions in the EMEA & Latin American markets.
Mike McCann, Group Chief Information Officer, Blackrock Health
Mike is responsible for the strategic priority of leveraging digital across Ireland’s newest private hospital group. Blackrock Health brings together four of Ireland’s leading private clinics – Blackrock Clinic, Galway Clinic, Hermitage Clinic and Limerick Clinic – to build on each other’s expertise and experience and evolve together as a stronger entity. Blackrock Health offers patients quick and easy access to world-class clinical care alongside leading and innovative medical technologies. Before joining Blackrock Health, Mike spent over 15 years as a client lead at Accenture managing multiple digital Health programmes across healthcare and wider public and private sector organisations.
Thomas Sharkey, Healthcare Lead, AWS, Ireland
With over 25 years of experience in IT, Thomas has worked with large organisations on identifying and solving their business continuity and disaster recovery challenges. Today, he leads the Amazon Web Services (AWS) healthcare sector in Ireland, where he supports both public and private Irish health organisations as they transform in this new era of healthcare. He has a strong passion for innovation and how technology can disrupt the way societies behave and operate. He is driven by how digital health can transform patient interactions with our healthcare system and provide better access for all.
John Swords, National Director, HSE Procurement
John Swords is the National Director of Procurement in the Health Service Executive (HSE). The HSE provides all of Ireland’s public health services in hospitals and communities across the country and is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the State. In this capacity, John leads procurement with a firm focus to enable a better service, with improved outcomes for patients and service users in a challenging environment.
John has been instrumental in progressing the strategic procurement journey across the organisation. With a keen interest in driving transformation through collaboration and innovation, John has led on developing and improving the Procurement Sourcing Plan, Compliance Improvement, development and roll out of the National Logistics Service along with the National Finance Reform and Stabilisation Programmes. Supporting the single National Financial Management and Procurement System referred to as IFMS (Integrated Financial Management System) is a focal point for the National Director of Procurement. This system which will be deployed throughout the entire health sector will be fundamental to the operation of procurement activities in the future.
John has held numerous leadership positions over the course of his career and as National Director of Health Business Services; he was responsible for the overall performance of HSE Shared Services where there was particular emphasis on contingency planning during the pandemic and the HSE cyber attack. This portfolio included Procurement, Finance, Estates, Human Resources, SAP Centre of Excellence and the National integrated Staff Records & Pay Programme (NiSRP).
As a member of the OGP (Office of Government Procurement) Reform Board, John is committed to procurement excellence and the overall public procurement reform programme. He is a member of the GS1 Ireland Board of Directors whose standards improve the efficiency, safety and visibility of supply chains across physical and digital channels in 25 sectors. Cross border collaborative working in health and social care is a high priority for John and in this regard he chairs the Procurement CAWT (Cooperation And Working Together) Group, a partnership between the Health and Social Care Services in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, which is EU funded.
Dr Christian Stafford (MSc (Eng), PhD, Dip. Strategy & Innovation),Digital Health Sector Lead, Enterprise Ireland
Dr Stafford has worked for 20 years in Ireland and the UK in academic, public and private sector in lifesciences research, commercialisation and business development. Between 2011 and 2016 lead a team managing spin-out HPSUs from state funded research, particularly focussed on health-tech and led the establishment of a number of large scale national public-private research & innovation Centres including the establishment of Health Innovation Hub Ireland in 2016. In June 2016, he joined the INFANT Maternal & Child Health Research Centre, hosted by UCC and based at Cork University Hospital and Cork University Maternity Hospital as Head of Business Development and became General Manager in 2018. INFANT is a clinical and health research Centre of over 100 staff, €50M funding portfolio with over 100 academic, clinical and industry partners in over 30 countries with major focus on clinical trials, health data and digital health research and innovation to improve outcomes in maternal and child health. In September 2021, Dr Stafford took up a new role as the digital health sector lead for Enterprise Ireland working with a large portfolio of digital health companies and developing sectoral initiatives in digital health.
Mark Coffey, Senior Director International Accounts, Johnson & Johnson Med Tech EMEA
Mark leads a team responsible for building and executing strategic long-term partnerships with some of the largest private hospital groups that operate in multiple geographies across the region. He has over 20 years’ experience in medical devices and has worked for a number of multinationals in sales, marketing and business leadership roles. Mark has been with J&J for 13 years in roles of increasing responsibility and geographic scope. Prior to his current role Mark was Managing Director of Johnson & Johnson’s Med Tech business in Ireland for 5 years and he has been a board member of Health Tech Ireland for the last 8 years. Demand for health services and high value care will continue to accelerate and Mark believes that collaboration and partnership between all stakeholders is the key to truly transforming care in a sustainable way.
Clare Harney, CEO, HD Health
HD Health is a digital health advisory firm specialising in digital transformation. In addition to this role, Clare is Programme Director for leading digital health transformation at RCSI and is also Director for Digital Development working on transforming healthcare regulatory management at Health Care Informed. She also advises on automation opportunities across the public and private sector. Clare is also Co-Founder and CIO of GraceTech, developing a transformative digital platform for oncology patients, their families and clinicians, improving clinical pathways, patient safety, communication, citizen centricity and efficiency of care. Clare was previously Executive Director, Digital Health Transformation at HealthTech Ireland, the trade association in Ireland representing Digital Health, Diagnostics and Medtech industry. Prior to this, she worked in various senior digital health and governance roles across industry and the health service, in the Department of Health, HIQA, and the HSE as National Programme Manager for the Acute Medicine Programme.
Clare holds a Bachelor of Business Information Systems and an MSc in Health Informatics from Trinity College, Dublin. She is involved in the EU Commission funded EIT Health mentorship programme mentoring early-stage digital health companies, and also her alumni mentorship programme, mentoring students and recent graduates with an interest in the digital health space.
Vicki O’Reilly, Vice-Chair, HealthTech Ireland
Vicki is the Head of Quality, Compliance and Regulatory Affairs for Sisk Healthcare, the Medtech arm of Uniphar. Vicki has worked in the medical devices industry for over 13 years, always with a focus on continuous improvement. Within HealthTech, Vicki has been a board member for 5 years and during this time has been an active member of both the Regulatory and Ethics Committees alongside her most recent role as Vice-Chair.