Riccardo Bellazzi is a Full Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pavia, where he chairs the PhD program in Bioengineering, Bioinformatics, and Health Technologies. He is also the co-director of the "Mario Stefanelli" Biomedical Informatics Labs and leads the Laboratory of Medical Informatics and Artificial Intelligence at the IRCCS ICS Maugeri in Pavia. He is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University in Denmark.

His research focuses on applying informatics to medicine and life sciences, with special interests in artificial intelligence, biomedical data mining, telemedicine, decision support systems, and clinical research informatics.

Professor Bellazzi has a broad, internationally recognized research career. He was named a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics in 2009, and a Founding Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in 2019. In 2023, he received the François Grémy Award of Excellence from the International Medical Informatics Association in recognition of his career achievements. He is also involved in several international research projects concerning AI and IT in biomedicine.

A member of the editorial boards for several biomedical informatics journals, he has authored over 450 international publications cited more than 11,000 times. He is also a co-founder of two academic spin-offs: Biomeris, which develops software for clinical research, and Engenome, which specializes in the bioinformatics analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data.

Kathrin Cresswell is Professor of Digital Innovations in Health and Care at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the safe, effective and equitable implementation of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, electronic patient records and digital health innovations, within complex health and care systems. She leads and contributes to major national and international research programmes examining how technology can improve healthcare while addressing organisational, social and policy challenges.

Kathrin has worked extensively with the NHS, governments and international organisations, including the World Health Organization, and has published widely on digital transformation, implementation science and health informatics. Her work combines rigorous research with practical policy and service improvement, helping health systems to evaluate, implement and scale digital innovations that deliver meaningful benefits for patients and healthcare professionals.

Dr Chris Paton is an Associate Professor at the Liggins Institute and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. He trained in medicine in the UK and worked in the NHS and the NZ healthcare system before entering academia. Dr. Paton received his DPhil in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford on the topic of improving the usability of digital health technologies and completed an Executive MBA from the University of Auckland in 2011. He is a member of the Health Systems Collaborative at the University of Oxford, where he worked for > 10 years as a clinical researcher working on health informatics research projects in Africa and Southeast Asia. He is the founding Editor in Chief of BMJ Digital Health & AI and a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS).

His current research interests include investigating the adoption of AI technologies for clinical decision support, using mathematical modelling for human-computer interaction research, and 3D simulation for health services research and healthcare worker training.

With more than twenty years’ experience working in health and higher education, Kerryn is known for her passion and dedication to the fields of digital health and to digital pedagogy. Kerryn has strong experience in industry partnerships, with over $9M in research funding, including the Global Specialist Digital Health Workforce Census and the Global Atlas of Literacies for Health (GALH), and over 200 research outputs. She is the co-chair of the Scholarship of Leading, International Society for the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching, Editor for the Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, and Deputy Editor of the BMJ Health and Care Informatics journal. As a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, Kerryn was recognised as a 2021 HIMSS Future50 Health IT Leader and 2022 Telstra Health Brilliant Women of Digital Health. An advocate for female leadership in higher education, Kerryn is well known for her collaborative and compassionate leadership style.

Summary: Health systems globally continue to invest heavily in digital technologies and data infrastructure to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes. Yet a paradox remains: while the health workforce represents the largest investment in most health systems, comparatively little attention is paid to developing the digital capabilities required to effectively use these technologies. This presentation explores the critical relationship between digital health investment, workforce capability, and sustainable learning health systems that transform care.

Drawing on international research in digital health literacy, the presentation will examine how digital capability is conceptualised and measured across the health workforce, including developments through the Global Atlas of Literacies for Health (GAHL) and other global initiatives. It will also introduce the Embedding Digital Health in Education (EDHE) Train the Trainer Toolkit, a practical resource supporting educators to integrate digital health competencies into pre-registration health curricula. We will also explore the specialist digital health workforce, highlighting evidence from the Australian Specialist Digital Health Workforce Census. Findings will be used to discuss workforce shortages, professional recognition, credentialing, training pathways, and leadership development. While healthcare may ultimately become inherently digital, there will remain a critical need for specialised professionals who connect health, data, information, knowledge, technology, and systems.

Participants will be challenged to consider not only what has been achieved, but what must happen next, and the role each of us plays in building a digitally led health workforce.

For the Americas and Europe

Sessions on October 13 and 14

Schedule of sessions for both days in representative time zones:

• 9 AM – 12 PM US Eastern time

• 10 AM – 1 PM in Argentina and Brazil

• 2 PM – 5 PM in the UK

• 3 PM – 6 PM in Central Europe and West Africa

Use this link to save the meeting to your calendar.

For Australia, New Zealand, and Asia

Single Session on October 14

Schedule of session for representative time zones:

• 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM in India (Mumbai)

• 11 AM – 2 PM in China (Beijing)

• 2 PM – 5 PM in Australian Eastern Time

• 4 PM – 7 PM in New Zealand

Use this link to save the meeting to your calendar.

The sessions for the Americas and Europe will not be contemporaneous with the session for Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. We will use recorded material to create common experiences for all participants.