FutureCare 2026: The Future of Healthcare in Ireland

Professor Jennifer Walsh has recently been appointed as the new Master of The National Maternity Hospital.

A graduate of UCD, Professor Walsh is currently a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and Maternal and Fetal Medicine Subspecialist at the National Maternity Hospital.  She has worked at The National Maternity Hospital since 2016, joining after the completion of postgraduate subspecialty training at Columbia University in New York. She is currently the Director of Fetal Medicine at the hospital.  

Professor Walsh sits on the Project Team for the move to the new National Maternity Hospital at the SVUH campus. She also chairs the Digital Health Steering Group for the future hospital.  

Conor Delaney is the Executive Vice President and President of the Cleveland Clinic Florida Market. In this role, he oversees a region that includes five hospitals, a state-of-the-art research center and numerous outpatient centers located in five counties across southeast Florida.

Previously, Dr. Delaney served as Chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute. He was responsible for the departments of Colorectal Surgery, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Nutrition and General Surgery throughout Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Delaney graduated from the University College Dublin Medical School in Ireland, where he also received a master’s degree in surgery. He received his doctorate in surgery from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Delaney completed a residency through the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, a transplant immunology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh and a colorectal surgery fellowship at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Delaney served as president of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He is also Cleveland Clinic’s Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Distinguished Chair in Healthcare Innovation and a Professor of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He has published 17 books, more than 400 original manuscripts and chapters and has given over 450 lectures nationally and internationally.

Robert Watt is Secretary General of the Department of Health in Ireland. Robert is leading the Irish Health Service through an unprecedented period of expansion and reform in implementing the Government’s Slaintecare programme. This involves integration and reform of governance, cross-sectoral delivery and managing complex stakeholders, including negotiations with Trade Unions and other Representative bodies. Notable reforms to date include Enhanced Community Care, the new Public Only Consultant Contract, new rostering and work patterns, reformed clinical pathways and enhanced affordability measures. Robert spent ten years as Secretary General in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. With the Department of Finance, he managed the annual budget and estimates process. During this period, Robert was one of the principal advisers to the Government on economic, budgetary and financial policy issues.  He was centrally involved in the management of the Troika Programme. Robert is an economist and has over 3 decades of experience in both the public and private sectors. He has worked in several roles within the Department of Finance, numerous external economic consultancy roles, including assignments for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He has been a member of numerous boards, including the board of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and the Economic Management Council (EMC). He is currently a board member of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

Dr Brian Pickering serves as Vice Chair for Practice in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and Chair of Digital Strategy for Critical Care at Mayo Clinic. As a Professor of Anesthesiology and a practising intensivist, Dr Pickering leads multidisciplinary efforts to embed intelligent, human-centred technology into acute care delivery — from the ICU to the virtual care centre.

Dr Pickering's work focuses on designing and evaluating clinical decision support tools that reduce information overload, improve diagnostic fidelity, and enable proactive intervention for patients at risk of deterioration. This includes the development of the AMP multipatient viewer, the CEDAR-AI platform for virtual surveillance, and the earlier AWARE dashboard, which laid the foundation for digital transformation in Mayo Clinic's ICU.

Prof Gabrielle Colleran is the President of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. Prof Colleran is a distinguished Clinical Associate Professor in Paediatrics at Trinity College Dublin and Assistant Clinical Professor in Women's and Children's Health at the UCD School of Medicine. She leads the Radiology Department at the National Maternity Hospital and is the Radiology Lead for the National Fetal MRI programme. 

John Hurley is a prominent figure in the Irish healthcare industry, currently serving as the Group CEO of Mater Private Hospitals. With a background in cardiology and healthcare management, John has led the Mater Private Network for more than 10 years.

John is known for his commitment to innovation in healthcare and is working towards developing an integrated healthcare system in Ireland. He has been a vocal advocate for the use of technology to improve patient outcomes and has helped bring cutting-edge solutions to Mater Private Hospitals.

With his passion for healthcare and his dedication to patient care, John Hurley continues to have an impact on the industry today, as well as actively shaping its future through a patient-centric, technology-enabled approach.

Fiona commenced as Chief Executive of the NTPF on 3rd July 2023, with 20 years of executive-level expertise in clinical care management. She is the former CEO and COO of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, and Louth County Hospital, having previously worked on the National Clinical Care programmes for the Emergency Medicine Programme. Fiona holds an MSc in Leadership, RCSI Institute of Leadership, a BSc in Nursing Management, also from RCSI, and has recently qualified as a professional Coach and Mentor from Kingstown College, Dublin.

Dr. med. Frank W. Heimig served as a clinical fellow in radiology and radiotherapy at Klinikum Saarbrücken, where he later became the head of medical controlling. Dr. Heimig served as the speaker of the DRG-Benchmarking Group, which was part of the “Economic Think Trust” of 13 leading hospitals in Germany. Dr. Heimig was also the general director of “IMC, Institut für medizinisch-ökonomisches Consulting,” the largest German consultancy group for hospital financing, and as the CEO of the same organization was responsible for introducing G-DRGs in more than 900 German hospitals. He was a member of the “Group of Experts for Hospital-Financing” for the “German Ministry of Health.” Currently he is the CEO of the German DRG-Institute, InEK H, and is responsible for the “algorithmic distribution” of a budget of 85 billion Euros financing all 2000 German hospitals. Dr. Heimig also represents Germany in the “International Group of Perspective Payment Issues” established for the EU.

Damien McCallion is the HSE’s Chief Technology and Transformation Officer with responsibility for technology, information security, data governance and digital development. Damien is the HSE Director for the Sláintecare Programme, overseeing the HSE’s medium to long term transformation programmes. Damien is also the lead for the HSE’s Organisational Change Unit, overseeing reform and transformation in the HSE. Damien is also Deputy CEO of the HSE.

Damien was the HSE’s Chief Operations Officer from mid-2022 to June 2024, responsible for oversight of day-to-day health and social care operations in the HSE and over 100,000 staff.

He took on a lead role in the COVID-19 pandemic response as the head of the successful Vaccination and Test &Trace programmes, a key part of the nation’s public health response to the pandemic. He held a variety of roles prior to this within the HSE, from Screening Services, Head of the National Ambulance Service, Head of ICT, National Director for Emergency Management and Special Delivery Unit, and an Area Manager for Health Services in the Northwest. He has also had a lead role in cross border health programmes, as Chair and Director General of CAWT, and the organisation Safefood as Deputy Chair, for a number of years.

Aoife Brick joined the Institute in 2007, she is currently a Senior Research Officer in the Social Research Division and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She has an MA (Applied Economics) and a PhD from the University of Galway.

Aoife’s publications cover a wide range of topics in health economics, including pharmaceutical pricing, caesarean section and breastfeeding rates, palliative care, healthcare reform, healthcare utilisation and expenditure. She a lead developer of the Hippocrates Model under the ESRI/Department of Health Research Programme on healthcare reform with a particular focus on acute hospitals, mental health, and disability services. She also manages the ESRI/HSE Workforce Planning Research Programme.