ISQua Healthcare Conference Speakers
Hear the thinkers, doers, and disruptors reshaping healthcare quality across continents, systems, and disciplines.
Healthcare Quality Talks You Can Act On
Every year, the speakers at ISQua’s International Conference leave delegates thinking, scribbling, and rethinking what’s possible in healthcare. Some bring research. Others bring lived experience. All bring something worth hearing. Whether you’re sitting in a packed keynote or leaning into a smaller session, you’ll leave with something new – insight, questions, next steps, or simply a better understanding of how others are tackling the same challenges you face.
Who's Taking the Stage?
This year’s line-up includes global leaders, community voices, researchers, and clinicians who’ve all stepped outside business as usual. Together with our partners at Organização Nacional de Acreditação (ONA), we’re proud to welcome these keynote speakers – with more still to come. Keep an eye on this page as the programme fills out.
Solange L. Baptiste
Solange L. Baptiste
As the Executive Director of ITPC Global, Solange leads a global community of activists and allies in their mission for health and social justice through robust community engagement. With a focus on HIV as an entry point to the broader right to health, her work encompasses ensuring access to quality treatment, making medicines affordable, and building community systems. Central to her work is leveraging community data to catalyze community-driven innovations that tackle challenges of paramount importance to communities. She actively contributes her expertise to various technical working and advisory groups at UNAIDS and the WHO. She’s also a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Public Investment Network (GPIN), which addresses development financing for global public goods. For over 18 years, Solange has worked to ensure that the voice of affected communities influences the decisions and policies that affect their lives. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Tuskegee University and a Master of Science in Population and International Health from Harvard T.H. Chang School of Public Health. Solange is a native of Trinidad and Tobago and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Jeffrey Braithwaite
Jeffrey Braithwaite
Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, BA, MIR (Hons), MBA, DipLR, PhD, FIML, FCHSM, FFPHRCP (UK), FAcSS (UK), Hon FRACMA, FAHMS is Foundation Director of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Director of the Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, and Professor of Health Systems Research, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He has appointments at six other universities internationally, and he’s a board member and Immediate Past President of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) and a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO). His research examines the changing nature of health systems, which has attracted funding of more than AUD $213 million. He’s particularly interested in healthcare as a complex adaptive system, and applying complexity science to health care problems. Professor Braithwaite has contributed over 842 refereed publications, and has presented at international and national conferences on more than 1,480 occasions, including 141 keynote addresses. His research appears in journals such as The BMJ, JAMA, The Lancet, Social Science & Medicine, BMJ Quality and Safety, and the International Journal for Quality in Health Care. He’s received over 70 different national and international awards for his teaching and research.
Aziz Sheikh
Aziz Sheikh
Dr. Aziz Sheikh is a primary care physician and pediatric allergist, and Professor of Primary Care Research and Development and Co-Director of the Centre of Medical Informatics in the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences at The University of Edinburgh. Dr. Sheikh has substantive academic and health policy interests in leveraging the potential of health information technology and data science to transform the delivery of healthcare and improve population health, which have led him to work with numerous governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Bank. He serves on the Steering Group and as Chair of the Evaluation Group of the WHO’s 3rd Global Safety Challenge on Medication Safety to its Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. He’s an editorial board member of PLOS Medicine, Medical Care, Health Informatics Journal, and BMC Medicine, and Editor-in-Chief of Nature Partnership Journal: Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. Dr. Sheikh has, together with colleagues across the world, held research grants in excess of $66m, has over 950 peer-reviewed publications, and over 33,000 citations to his work. His co-edited books include Health Care Errors and Patient Safety (Wiley), Patient Safety and Healthcare Improvement at a Glance (Wiley), and Key Advances in Clinical Informatics: Transforming Health Care through Health Information Technology (Elsevier). He’s given keynote and plenary presentations in over 40 countries and has won numerous national fellowships and awards including, most recently, a Harkness Fellowship in Health Policy and Practice based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He held the position of Visiting Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School (2014–16) and currently holds visiting chairs at the University of Birmingham (UK), Queen Mary’s University of London (UK), and Maastricht University (Netherlands). Dr. Sheikh was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for Services to Medicine and Health Care by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.
Helen Haskell
Helen Haskell
Helen Haskell is president of the patient organizations Mothers Against Medical Error and Consumers Advancing Patient Safety and head of patient safety at the World Patients’ Alliance. Helen is an Institute for Healthcare Improvement senior fellow, a member of the ISQua International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care, and a board member of the Patient Safety Action Network and the International Society for Rapid Response Systems. She is previous chair of the WHO Patients for Patient Safety Advisory Group and the Patient Engagement Committee of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. Helen’s goal since the medical error death of her young son Lewis has been to enhance the patient’s contribution to safety and quality in healthcare. She has written or co-authored dozens of articles, book chapters, and educational materials on patient engagement in safety, quality, and diagnosis, including a co-edited textbook of case studies from the patient perspective. Her son Lewis’s story has been featured in educational programmes and videos including Transparent Health’s full-length Lewis Blackman Story. Helen holds a bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies from Duke University and a master’s degree in Anthropology from Rice University in the United States.
Paulo Sousa
Paulo Sousa
Paulo Sousa is an Associate Professor and Director of the Department of Health Strategies at the National School of Public Health – NOVA University Lisbon (NSPH NOVA). He has expertise in Quality Improvement, Patient Safety, Health Policies and Global Health. Paulo has coordinated national projects in Portugal and has collaborated on international initiatives, including in Brazil, Mozambique, Greece, Spain, and other countries. Since 2020, he’s been the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Education, Research, and Evaluation of Safety and Quality in Healthcare. He has authored over 100 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He also serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, International Journal of Public Health, Portuguese Journal of Public Health, and Portuguese Journal of Cardiology. Paulo has been collaborating as an Improvement Advisor and Faculty Member at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and is a member of the International Academy for Quality & Safety (IAQS).
Raj Ratwani
Raj Ratwani
Raj is the vice president of scientific affairs for the MedStar Health Research Institute, the director of the MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare and professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. Raj has extensive expertise in patient safety, human cognition and artificial intelligence, usability, digital health technologies, and data science. He’s an active applied researcher serving as principal investigator on numerous grants and contracts, including five research project grant (R01) awards from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which are among the most prestigious grants. Raj’s research has been funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Pew Charitable Trusts, and industry partners. His work has been published in high-impact journals such as The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and Health Affairs and has influenced both policy and frontline clinical practice. His research has been featured by Politico, Fortune, Kaiser Health News, National Public Radio (NPR), and many other media outlets. He has served on federal advisory committees and testified to the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. He holds a doctorate in Human Factors and Applied Cognition and was a National Research Council post-doctoral fellow at the US Naval Research Laboratory.
Explore the Full Conference Programme
Ready to plan your schedule? Take a look at the full line-up of pre-conference sessions, educational site visits, and topics waiting for you in São Paulo.
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