Speakers

Professor S. Arulrhaj 
Dr. Arulrhaj is an adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai. He also server as an examiner to PGDEM of Georgia Washington University, USA. He plays an active role in the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Association of Physicians in India and honored by the Life Time Achievement Award from the Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai. He was elected as the Vice President of Commonwealth medical Association for 2004-2007 and the President of Commonwealth medical Association for 2007-2010. Dr Arulrhaj was the Dean of IMA College, NewDelhi for 1996-1998 and further as the National President of IMA 2002-2003.

Dr Jed Blore
Research Fellow, Global Burden of Disease Group
School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

Ms. Jyotsna Chikersal
Ms Jyotsna Chikersal is the Regional Advisor for Health Situation and Trend Assessment (HST) for the WHO’s South East Asia Region based in New Delhi, India. She leads WHO’s technical advice to member countries in the region on strengthening Health Information Systems, Civil registration and Vital Statistics, Health Statistics and eHealth as key pillars to strengthen Health Systems. She has over 15 years of experience in building strategic collaborations with development partners and academic institutions to promote technical cooperation as well as capacity building in the area of HST. In recent years, unit’s work has also focused on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in improving quality health services, accelerating universal health coverage, monitoring results, and improving information and accountability for better health outcomes. She has also been spearheading work in the region towards the direction of implementing Open Source Tools, District Health Information System, Electronic Medical Records and Health Data Standards. Ms Chikersal has also being taking forward the coordination of the activities under the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s(COIA) health in SEAR countries, and monitoring of international health goals such as MDGs.

Professor Kristin Braa
Kristin Braa is a Professor and Vice Head at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo since she returned from Telenor a Norwegian international telecom company in 2009. There she established and headed a research and innovation center for Telenor’s Asian operations. She is currently heading the Health Information Systems Program (HISP) network, initiated at the University of Oslo in 1994. HISP is a global action research network which is responsible for the development of the open source based District Health Information Software (DHIS 2). 20 PhD students have graduated and 34 are currently doing their PhD with this program. DHIS 2 is developed, customized and used for reporting, analysis and dissemination of health data for all health programs in an integrated way. It is a shared and integrated data warehouse for essential health data with the aim of supporting information for action. It is implemented in over 40 countries in Africa and Asia including 12 states in India. 12 countries has selected it as a national online HIS using mobile internet. Data can be captured and visualized on any type of mobile device including tablets, smart phones and feature phones.

Ms Lacey Hart
Lacey Hart, MBA, is a Project Management Institute–certified project manager with a master’s degree in business administration with 17 years in the healthcare field. She is the Vice President of Strategic Planning & Business Development for Brandix I three. Ms. Hart, formerly of Mayo Clinic, was the program director for research programs including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare IT (ONC) Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) on Secondary EHR Data Use and the Beacon Community grant, and the National Institutes of Health/National Human Genome Institute–funded consortium of biorepositories linked to medical records (eMERGE) to name a few. Brandix I three Healthcare Sector is enabling healthcare transformation through innovative health IT solutions and process improvement expertise.

Dr Solaiman Juman
Dr. Solaiman is a graduate of the University of West Indies (UWI). He subsequently did Postgraduate training in the UK, obtaining the FRCS (Eng) in General Surgery and Otolaryngology. Since 1995 he has been a Lecturer in Otolaryngology at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. At present, he is the Programme Director in Otolaryngology in the St. Augustine Campus of UWI. His research interests include Paediatric Otolaryngology and the demographics of ENT disease in Trinidad & Tobago.
He is Past President of the Trinidad & Tobago Medical Association as well as the Trinidad & Tobago Society of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery. He is the Editor of the Caribbean Medical Journal and also member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery (AAOHNS). In 2013 he was elected the President of the Commonwealth Medical Association (CMA). His vision is to use the vehicle of the CMA to empower the National Medical Associations of the Commonwealth. There is a high penetration of Digital technology(e-Health and m-Health) in the countries of the Commonwealth and lends itself to being the ideal and cost-effective medium for the sharing of knowledge amongst the countries of the commonwealth to provide optimal care for their citizens.

Dr Thanga Prabhu
Dr Prabhu is the Clinical Director of the GE Healthcare IT. He is the founding secretary of IAMI Bangalore chapter and currently and Executive Committee member of the IAMI (Indian Association for Medical Informatics). He serves as the International Ambassador for Swansea University.

Dr Miguel Torres Urqidy
Miguel H. Torres Urquidy, DDS, MS, is Senior Service Fellow at the Division of Health Informatics and Surveillance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also former BioSense Program Manager for CDC which is one of the largest biosurveillance systems in the world. Dr. Torres Urquidy first joined CDC’s Influenza Division as Informatics Fellow where he led the development of several visualization systems of influenza information including mobile technologies. Internationally, he assisted in assessing the influenza surveillance capabilities in Central America. Dr. Torres Urquidy’s work in visualization earned him several awards including the 2013 National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Honor Award for “Excellence in Domestic Epidemiology.” Previously, he was a post-doctoral associate at the Center for Dental Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh working on National Institutes of Health-funded research related to clinical terminologies. Dr. Torres Urquidy was trained as a dentist at the National University of Mexico and continued his education with a master’s degree in biomedical informatics from the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. There, he developed a biosurveillance system that detected oral manifestations caused by bioterrorist agents by using emergency department data. In 2004, he rotated with the NIH’s National Library of Medicine conducted analyses on U.S. public policy. Dr. Torres Urquidy is past chair of the Dental Informatics Working Group at the American Medical Informatics Association and the International Medical Informatics Association. His work has been featured in several peer-reviewed health journals, US media and conferences. His book, Medical and Dental Data Integration, is published by Springer-Verlag.

Dr Champika Wickramasinghe
Dr Wickramasinghe is the Director, Health Information and acting Senior Assistant Secretary – Medical Services in the Ministry of Health Sri Lanka. She obtained her MBBS from University of Peradeniya and her MSc and MD in Community Medicine from University of Colombo.   Having worked as a Medical Administrator for the past 12 years holding key administrative posts including that of Director Planning, Director International Health and Medical superintendent  DGH Negombo, she possess an in depth understanding of the intricacies of the state health sector. She is also presently involved in several large scale projects as the Project Director viz. SHSDP, JICA, in the Ministry of Health. She is the present Vice-President of the College of Medical Administrators and a member of the Specialty Board for Biomedical Informatics at the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo. Her special interests revolves around health economics, and Health planning.

Dr Buddhika Ariyaratne 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Department of Health Services, Southern Province

Dr Nirmala Cooray 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Buddika Dayaratne 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr NS Sriyantha de Silva 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Praveen de Silva 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Castle Street Hospital for Women

Dr Saminda M. Dharmaratne 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Teaching Hospital, Kandy

Dr Manjula Dharmawardhana 
Medical Officer-Health Information, The National Hospital of Sri Lanka

Mr Jayatha Fernando 
Programme Director/Legal Advisor, Information & Communication Agency

Dr Roshan Hewapathirana 
Visiting Lecturer, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine

Dr Indika Jagoda 
Registrar in Medical Administration, Ministry of Health

Dr Clive James 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Kapila Jayaratne 
National Programme Manager – Maternal & Child Morbidity & Mortality Surveillance, Family Health Bureau

Dr Achala Jayatilleke 
Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Informatics,
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine

Dr DBAS Jayawardane 
Registrar in Medical Administration, Ministry of Health

Dr Sampath Kulatilake 
Medical Officer In Charge Of  eHOSPITAL-Dompe Project  &  mChanneling, District Hospital – Dompe

Dr Gumindu Kulatunga 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Coordinator Suwasariya ehealth education resource center, Health Education Bureau

Dr Pramil Liyanage 
Medical Officer-Health Information, National Programme for Tuberculosis Control & Chest Diseases

Dr Neranga Liyanaarachchi 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Manodya Rajapaksa 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Office of Regional Director of Health Services, Puttalam

Dr Prasad Ranatunga
Medical Officer-Health Information, Provincial General Hospital, Kurunegala

Dr Kosala Randeniya 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Rikaz Sheriff 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Office of the Provincial Director of Health Services, Western Province

Mr Thushara Suraweera
Programme Specialist, Information & Communication Technology Agency

Dr Pradeep Sylva 
Dental Surgeon-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Mr Pubudu Samarakoon 
Research Fellow, University of Oslo

Dr Nishan Siriwardena
Medical Officer-Health Information, National Cancer Institute

Dr Sanath Thubellage 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Medical Research Institute

Dr Prasanna Weerakoon
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Kusal Wijayaweera 
Medical Officer-Health Information, Ministry of Health

Dr Arjuna Wijekoon 
Head of the Health Information Management Unit, Department of Health Services, North-western Province

Dr Deepal Wijesooriya
Medical Officer-Health Information, National Institute of Health Sciences

Dr Priyanga Senanayake
Medical Officer-Health Information, Sri Jayawardanepura General Hospital

Dr Samiddhi Samarakoon
Registrar in Medical Administration, Ministry of Health