ECHAlliance ready for further expansion

Chair, Brian O’Connor said

“Our first phase of growth has established us as an innovative and fast expanding International company, with an established Brand and lots more to do.”

We used the summer months to review our progress, learn lessons from our mistakes and plan for the next phase. We have listened to many of our members, partners and communities and we have looked at what resources will be required to deliver our initiatives and are pleased to share the outcome of that listening process with you.

The ECHAlliance Board has been strengthened and specific Director Executive responsibilities have been agreed as follows:

ECHAlliance Board (see short bios here):

• Executive Chair: Brian O’Connor, Chair at ECHAlliance
• Deputy Chair and Digital Health Society: Bleddyn Rees, Digital Health Expert & Lawyer
• Medical Director: Prof George Crooks OBE, CEO at Digital Health and Care Institute, Scotland’s national Innovation Centre for Digital Health and Care
• Joan Cornet, Director Digital Health Observatory and Coalition of the Willing at ECHAlliance
• Damian O’Connor, International Network of Ecosystems and Special Projects at ECHAlliance
• Julien Venne, Non Executive Director Special Projects 
• Richard Pengelly, ECHAlliance Non Executive Director & Permanent Secretary of Department of Health and Chief Executive of Health and Social Care Northern Ireland 
• Prof Jim Mc Laughlin OBE, ECHAlliance Non Executive Director & Director of the Engineering Research Institute and Director of NIBEC, University of Ulster 

Prof Chris Taylor OBE, has retired from the board, we are grateful to him for his contribution throughout our first phase, including the creation of our first Ecosystem in Manchester, in June 2012, which seems a long time ago. 

In addition we have looked at what we need to do to ensure we deliver on our activities ,which include Membership Benefits, Ecosystem Network, The Digital Health Society, Coalition of the Willing, EU and other Projects, the Digital Health Observatory, our Canadian and China Alliances and of course our recently announced partnership with the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health.

We have strengthened our team to deliver on the current and recently won International projects around European programmes, national and regional investments or private stakeholders. In order to support its growth and these new developments, ECHAlliance has reorganised its team:

• Valentina Tageo , already part of the team and based in Spain, will take a new comprehensive role, leading the international projects unit. 
• Carina Dantas, based in Portugal, joins the ECHAlliance team as International project manager.
• Myriam Martin, based in Spain, and Alexia Zurkuhlen, based in Germany, continue as International project managers supporting the development of new projects.
• Andy Bleaden, based in England, will lead our relations with funding organisations and customers, in order to detect new opportunities for the organisation and its members and ecosystems.
• Julien Venne, previously in charge of Strategy and Innovation, is leaving his operational activities but he’s joining the ECHAlliance Board as a non-executive Director and will assist with special projects and initiatives.

(see short bios here)

This strengthened ECHAlliance team can then support more efficiently its members and partners in the development of projects through its capacity and know-how for coordination and management, and/or communication and dissemination, and for exploitation and implementation on the ground thanks to its International Network of Ecosystems.

Brian O’ Connor, Chair of the ECHAlliance, said:

“We are gearing up for our next phase of expansion and have a number of new initiatives in the pipeline. More and more members are collaborating with us on EU and other projects, the Digital Health Society is growing and we want to continuously improve our services. This is a great team, which we will continue to expand as needed. Our thanks to Julien, who has been with us for over 5 years. He has contributed a great deal to our growth and our strategy. We wish him well in his next phase and are delighted that we will maintain a relationship with him in the future.”