Sessions
Keynote Address
2:00 PM - 2:20 PM Wed
Prof em Jan De Maeseneer, MD, PhD, (Hon) FRCGP, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University - Belgium
Throughout his career, Professor Jan De Maeseneer has demonstrated leadership in health as a Family Physician, working for 40 years in one of the first Interprofessional Community Health Centres in Belgium (1978-2017). In addition to his function as Vice-Dean for Strategic Planning at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University, he led a fundamental curriculum reform towards an Integrated Community Oriented Contextual Undergraduate Medical Curriculum (1997-2016), and developed the Inter-university 3 years post-graduate Training Programme in Family Medicine in Flanders (1991-2017). He has been actively involved in developing an integrated, needs-based capitation system for financing Primary Health Care (PHC) in Belgium, taking the lead in strengthening inter-professional cooperation as well as integrating public health, primary care, health and social care in practice and education. He strongly inspired the paradigm-shift in chronic care from disease-oriented towards goal-oriented care. He also contributed to equity in health internationally, as a member of the Knowledge Network on Health Systems of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2006-2008) and as a change agent to develop and strengthen PHC in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa (Primafamed-Network: www.primafamed.ugent.be ). From 2005-2017, he was the Chair of the European Forum for Primary Care (www.euprimarycare.org ) and was Secretary-General of The Network: Towards Unity for Health from 2007-2015 (www.thenetworktufh.org ). He chaired the City Health Council in Ghent (2010-today) and the Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health, advising the European Commission on health topics (2013-2019). Since 2019, he is a Member of the Board of the Flemish Institute for Primary Care (VIVEL) and in October 2019, he was selected as an International Member of the National Academy of Medicine, Washington, USA.