Innovation Hub

Sheba Hospital, Israel

Avner Halperin

Deputy Director of ARC

Avner Halperin is an entrepreneur, executive and researcher in the fields of digital health and big data economics. He is Chairman of the Board at EyeControl – winner of the Genesis Award for contribution to the battle against COVID-19.  He also teaches a course on big data economics at Tel Aviv University. In addition, he leads on global innovation for Sheba Medical Center – ranked as one of the top 10 best hospitals in the world.

Previously, he was the founding CEO of EarlySense for 15 years – bringing the company from the idea stage to over 1,000,000 patients served and tens of thousands of lives saved. Prior to that, Avner was CEO of Emmunet, VP Marketing at Radcom (NASDAQ: RDCM), and R&D leader at Eldat Communications (acquired by Pricer(PRIC.ST)). Earlier, he was Department Head of an R&D Unit in the Israeli Defence Forces Intelligence Corps where he won the Intelligence Innovation Award.

Avner earned an MSc in Applied Physics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from MIT where he did research on globally dispersed teams. He taught courses on economics and entrepreneurship in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research papers and 33 US patents have been cited over 3,800 times. He gave a TEDx talk on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare in 2019.

Centre for Healthcare Innovation, Singapore

Dr Cher Heng Tan

Executive Director

Dr Cher Heng Tan is a clinician leader who seeks to transform healthcare through systems change. A radiologist by training, he completed his clinical fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and subsequently obtained his executive MBA from Insead. As Executive Director of Centre for Health Innovation, and Assistant Dean for the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, he leads teams to build programmes that facilitate the adoption and implementation of value-based healthcare innovations.

American Hospital Association, USA

Doug Shaw

Senior Vice President, Business Development

Healthcare executive with extensive general management experience serving the provider, payer, and plan sponsor segments. Expert in integrating analytics into workflow to improve outcomes, reduce operating costs, and influence consumer behavior. Proven success in revitalizing under-performing businesses, exceeding customer and corporate expectations, and engaging colleagues. Effective public speaker, consultant, mentor, and direction-setter.

Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland

Helena Bornet Dit Vorgeat

Head of Innovation

Helena Bornet Dit Vorgeat co-created the HUG Innovation Center: a place where everyone can make a difference.  She has a degree in medical informatics which led her to take charge of the Concerto platform project, an application that helps patients become involved in their care before, during, and after their visit to the hospital.

NHS Confederation, United Kingdom

James Maddocks

International Policy Advisor

Health policy professional with experience in analysis and research. Regularly working on international trade, global health, and data policy.

Currently working as the Senior Advisor to Matthew Taylor, CEO of the NHS Confederation.

Polish Hospital Federation

Ligia Kornowska

Managing Director

Ligia is responsible for issues with medical data (access to medical data, data protection, cybersecurity) and innovations in healthcare, i.e. AI, AR, blockchain technology. She is also the co-founder and President of the Board of the “Donate your Data” Foundation.

HCA Healthcare, USA

Dr Michael Schlosser

Senior Vice President, Care Transformation and Innovation

Dr Michael Schlosser, MBA, FAANS is Senior Vice President, Care Transformation and Innovation for HCA Healthcare. In this role he leads clinical and operational innovation and transformation for the enterprise. He leads a new department whose purpose is to redesign care delivery within acute care facilities focusing on digitally enabled, patient-centred, and highly effective care delivery. This includes partnering with IT and cloud computing teams and providing leadership on design and use of HCA’s Intelligence Net. These efforts will create real time data and technology-enabled clinical operations. Dr Schlosser also oversees clinical informatics and the implementation of HCA’s next generation EHR, Meditech Expanse.

Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Medical Officer for the HCA National Group and as Vice President of Clinical Excellence and surgical services for HCA Clinical Services Group where he led the clinical operations for 105 acute care facilities across 14 States, overseeing quality, patient outcomes, clinical strategy, and innovation. He also served as the first CMO for HealthTrust, the exclusive GPO for more than 1600 hospitals across the US and HCA’s supply chain management organization.

Dr Schlosser holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine and an MBA from Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon and completed his residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins. In clinical practice he focused on complex spine reconstruction. He has held multiple physician leadership roles while in clinical practice, including Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff, and interim CMO of TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He has also served as a medical officer in the USA's Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiologic Health.

Changhua Christian Hospital, Taiwan

Dr Nina Kao

Chief Executive Officer, Overseas Medical Mission Center

Dr Nina, Kao Hsiao Ling is the CEO of Overseas Medical Mission Center of Changhua Christian Hospital and the Executive Director of Taiwan AID Board Members, the international cooperation alliance of Taiwan's NGOs. Dr  Nina is a professional international project manager and has been devoting herself to international works for more than 15 years. She makes an effort to mobilize the public and private sectors' resources to conduct the international programme in developing countries. Dr  Nina also concerns about the development effectiveness and effective cooperation development. She joined the regional networking of CPDE (CSOs Partnership for Development and Effectiveness) to organize the workshop for CSOs in Taiwan to promote Enabling Environment, SDGs implementation, transparency, and accountability.

Stanford Medicine, USA

Priya Singh

Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Associate Dean

Priya Singh serves as Stanford Medicine’s Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Associate Dean. In her enterprise-wide role across a $11 billon preeminent academic health centre, she oversees strategic planning, global strategy, industry relations, public relations, and communications.

Priya led Stanford Medicine’s first integrated strategic planning process, aligning the School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. This effort brought together the institution’s research, education, and clinical care missions and highlighted its revolutionary vision on Precision Health. As a senior advisor, influencer, and results-oriented strategist with a strong focus on developing diverse teams to foster innovation and strategic growth, she has delivered data-driven campaigns to raise the institution’s profile globally.

Previously, she was Assistant Dean for the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was responsible for global innovation and executive education programmes. Before coming to Stanford, Singh held marketing management roles at Oracle, Respond.com, and Levi Strauss & Co. She earned her bachelors and masters degrees in business management at the University of Bombay, India.

Apollo Hospitals and Apollo eACCESS TeleICU Service, India

Dr Sai Praveen Haranath

Senior Consultant, Pulmonology and Critical Care; Medical Director

Dr Sai Praveen Haranath is a pulmonary and critical care physician at Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, India and is also a founding member of the Apollo eACCESS programme which provides teleICU services around India. He graduated from Madras Medical College and then went to the USA where he spent over 15 years specializing in internal medicine, pulmonary and critical care medicine (and is American Board Certified in these fields). He also obtained a Masters in Public Health and is a Fellow and member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Chest Physicians. He returned to India in 2011 to pursue his lifelong desire to raise the standard of Indian and global healthcare through the ethical practice of excellent medicine. He has been interested in managing tobacco and smoking addiction for several years and was also selected to attend the Johns Hopkins Global Tobacco Leadership Program in 2016. Innovation and creation of value in healthcare technology is a daily mission and he currently mentors several healthcare startups. In February  2018 he was invited as a TEDx speaker and spoke about remote critical care and likewise to the NHS in 2021. He has been active in the COVID pandemic contributing strategic thought for ventilator resources, remote care of COVID patients and coordinating clinical resources.

Aga Khan University, Tanzania

Dr Saleem Sayani

Director, Technology Innovation Support Centre

Saleem Sayani is the Director of the Technology Innovation Support Centre at Aga Khan University; Director of the Aga Khan Development Network Digital Health Resource Centre (AKDN dHRC); and serves as faculty for the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Aga Khan University.

Mediclinic, UAE

Sara Alom Ruiz

Divisional General Manager MCSA: Digital Transformation and Innovation

Dr Sara Alom brings over 16 years of healthcare management experience and has served in senior executive roles in leading private healthcare providers, with a strong track record in strategy, operations, governance and commercial growth. Sara is particularly passionate about the delivery of world-class care, building strong teams, operational efficiency, patient centeredness and innovation.

Stanford Medicine, USA

Sinan Sanvar

Executive Director, Enterprise Strategy

Sinan Sanvar is a senior healthcare executive with extensive experience in strategic planning, business development, and developing and executing growth strategies at large academic medical centres. Prior to joining Stanford Medicine, Sinan held leadership roles at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Cleveland Clinic.

Apollo Hospitals, India

Dr Sujoy Kar

Chief Medical Information Officer & Vice President

Dr Sujoy Kar is responsible for designing, developing and deploying over dozens of Clinical AI APIs at Apollo Hospitals. His current and ongoing research interests are in adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, Digital Health Platforms and Design Thinking in Healthcare.

Portuguese Association for Hospital Development (co-chair)

Vanessa Ribeiro

Head of Planning and Innovation

Vanessa leads the planning and innovation at the Portuguese Association for Hospital Development, the government organization in charge of the management of the resources of the national health service. She is focused on innovation regarding organizational models of care (patient centred care, integrated care) and healthcare commissioning models that can contribute to the health system sustainability.

Vanessa holds a Masters degree in Health Management and a PhD in Public Health, both from the National School of Public Health/NOVA University of Lisbon.

With almost 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector, her career started as a nurse, moving to the health system administration as a technical officer where she had the exciting opportunity to work in cross-sectional issues, such as health system performance assessment, referral networks and integrated care, both at national and international level.

Vanessa was elected to the IHF Governing Council in November 2022.

Sheba Hospital, Israel

Yair Itzak

Director of Global Partnerships

Having spent over 17 years in senior sales, marketing and business development roles in the telecommunications sector,  Yair decided to take on a new challenge and joined Sheba Medical Center in 2014. A people’s person with vast experience working alongside individuals from diverse nationalities and cultures, Yair takes pride in maintaining excellent relationships with colleagues and partners, and finds nothing more satisfying than concluding a new collaboration for the benefit of all parties involved.

Cleveland Clinic, USA

Travis Laird

Executive Director, International Operations

UK Department for International Trade (DIT)

Natalie Bain

Head of Healthcare UK

Natalie has over 20 years’ experience working for the UK government in international trade, and has completed overseas diplomatic postings to India, Japan, and New Zealand. With a passion for healthcare, Natalie has responsibility for increasing commercial income into the NHS through trade. Thanks to outstanding leadership, communication, and strategic thinking skills has frequently been asked to lead on high-profile initiatives across government, often reporting directly into No10 and working with a large stakeholder group. Natalie has built a solid track record of leading and developing large and high-performing teams.