Jaanika Merilo

With over 20 years of experience in technology and digital transformation – including 10 years in eHealth – Jaanika Merilo has been at the forefront of driving innovation. From 2019-2025 she has advised the Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. In 2023, she joined the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia, where she currently serves as Head of Digital Health and Care and acts as Estonia’s national contact point for European Health Data Space.
Jaanika holds Master’s degrees from the University of Cumbria, the Rome Business School, and the University of Valencia, specializing in eHealth Management. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and nominations, including a place in Google and the Financial Times 2015 NE100 list of “Innovators whose innovations change the world for the better” and “Visionaries in government that shape the future of AI”. 

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Chiara Dall'ora

Chiara Dall’Ora is an Associate Professor who leads the Health Workforce & Systems theme in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton and serves as Co Theme Lead for the NIHR ARC Wessex Data and Technology theme. A registered nurse, she qualified in Italy at the Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca. Chiara’s research programme examines health workforce wellbeing and performance, with a particular focus on work hours, shift patterns, and workforce configuration. She specialises in analysing routinely collected workforce data from rostering systems to generate actionable insights that improve staff experience, retention, and care quality. Her work informs practical changes to scheduling and deployment that support sustainable nursing teams.

Laura-Maria Peltonen
 

Dr Laura-Maria Peltonen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Health Management at the University of Eastern Finland and the Department of Nursing Science at the University of Turku in Finland. She also serves as Visiting Associate Professor at Warwick Medical School, UK.
Her research focuses on the responsible and human-centred integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, with particular emphasis on its social, legal and ethical implications. She conducts clinical evaluation research to assess the impact of digital health solutions on patient, service and workforce outcomes. Dr Peltonen is a Fellow of the European Academy of Nursing Science (FEANS) and a Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), of which she is President-Elect. She serves as Institutional Members Officer for the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) and Chair of the EFMI Nursing Informatics Working Group. Her work bridges research, policy and practice, aiming to ensure that nurses are actively involved in designing and implementing AI solutions that enhance quality, equity, and safety in care.

Jos M. Latour
 

Professor Jos Latour is Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Plymouth, UK, and an internationally recognised clinical academic in adult, paediatric and neonatal intensive care. His research focuses on human‑centred care and improving outcomes and experiences of patients, families and healthcare professionals. He combines this with a clinical academic role at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, where he is the director of the Clinical School to strengthen research capacity among nurses and allied health professionals. His research and clinical academic leadership directly supports ENDA’s focus on strategic nurse leadership and future‑oriented nursing services. Collectively, his work strengthens future sustainable healthcare by improving outcomes and the use of resources for patients, families and staff.

The vision of Jos is to empower all healthcare stakeholders by strengthening communication and co‑designing care to supports care models that transform nursing services to be more efficient and sustainable over time. This includes nurses’ well‑being and supportive team cultures, which are essential to retaining the workforce and sustaining quality in resource‑constrained healthcare systems.

He says: I am not a machine, I am human!

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