Andrew Spiegel has nearly two decades of experience in the patient advocacy arena. Spiegel co-founded the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, now the leading US based national patient advocacy organization dedicated to colon cancer. Mr. Spiegel, an attorney, besides being a co-founder of the organization and longtime board member of the Alliance became CEO in January of 2008 and he ran the CCA for nearly 5 years, before undertaking his next venture, the Global Colon Cancer Association (GCCA). Currently, Spiegel is co-founder and executive director of the GCCA, an international patient advocacy organization. This organization is an international community of nearly 50 colon cancer patient advocacy organizations and stakeholders dedicated to end the worldwide suffering of the 3rd leading cause of cancer deaths. In addition to his work in the colon cancer community, Spiegelis an active advocate for health care policies both in the US and now worldwide. He is a co-founder and currently serves on the steering committee of the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines (ASBM). He is on the Board of Directors, and in December 2014 was elected to Chair, of the Digestive Disease National Coalition (DDNC),a founding member of the Coalition to Increase Clinical Trial Participation and in May of 2016 he began a three year term as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Alliance of Patient Organizations (IAPO) where he chaired the fundraising committee. Spiegel has won multiple awards for his work in patient advocacy. Spiegel is a 1986 graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with minors in English and Philosophy. He is a 1989 graduate of the Widener University School of Law. After working for a Philadelphia litigation firm, Spiegel opened his own law firm in 1995.

Hussain Jafri is the CEO of the World Patients Alliance. He is also the Secretary General of Alzheimer’s Pakistan, the national association of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias that Hussain founded in 1999 as a result of his experiences as a caregiver for his grandfather with Alzheimer’s Disease. He also serves as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Patient Safety Research, University of Kalisz, Poland, where he contributes to advancing academic work in patient safety and healthcare quality. He has been very active in the field of patient safety and served as the Vice Chair of the Advisory Group of WHO’s Patients for Patient Safety Program (PFPS). Hussain also founded the Pakistan Patient Safety Initiative and has led several patient safety efforts across the country. The Government of Punjab nominated him as the Provincial Focal Person on Patient Safety & Quality, assigning him responsibility for developing patient safety and quality services in the province’s health sector. He has extensive experience as a volunteer in the social sector and has worked with government, national, and international nonprofit organizations. Hussain is a member of the Person and Family Centred Advisory Council (PFCAC) of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) and a taskforce member of the Global Alliance of Partners for Pain Advocacy (GAPPA). He is also an experienced speaker and resource person, having presented nationally and internationally on patient safety, person-centred healthcare, caregiving, advocacy, partnership in health, and organizational development. Hussain holds a PhD from the University of Leeds, UK, focused on the prevention of genetic disorders. He previously served as Director General of the Punjab Thalassemia & Other Genetic Disorders Prevention & Research Institute and has published several papers in internationally indexed journals.

Since the medical error death of her young son Lewis in 2000, Helen Haskell has worked to bring the patient voice to healthcare safety and quality. Helen is president of the American nonprofit patient organizations Mothers Against Medical Error and Consumers Advancing Patient Safety and is an Institute for Healthcare Improvement senior fellow. She is Chair of WPA Patient Safety and Quality Council and former co-chair of the WHO Patients for Patient Safety Advisory Group and a recently retired board member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. She is a member of the board of directors of the International Society for Rapid Response Systems, the Patient Safety Action Network and is on the steering committee of Consumers United for Evidence-Based Medicine. She serves on many other boards and committees, including quality and safety committees at the National Quality Forum, AHRQ, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She was a winner of Consumer Reports’ first National Excellence in Advocacy award in 2011 and was named by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” in 2009 and by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of 50 leaders in patient safety in 2015, 2016, and 2017. She has written numerous journal articles and patient educational materials on patient safety and patient engagement and is co-editor of an interprofessional textbook using patient narrative to teach patient safety and professional competencies. She has been featured in dozens of articles and videos on patient safety, including Transparent Health’s Lewis Blackman Story, shown in hospitals and medical and nursing schools across the world.

M.D. MPH. M.B.B.Ch., B.A,. FRCPCH, FCP (SA), FRCPI

Peter Lachman works across different countries. In Ireland he has delivered programmes to develop clinical leaders in quality improvement at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In Africa he has delivered patient safety and quality programmes in Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Mozambique for the Health Service Executive (HSE) Global Health Programme. He is the Director of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation Kiani Global Interprofessional Patient Safety Fellowship. He was Chief Executive Officer of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) 2016 -2021. He was a Health Foundation Quality Improvement Fellow at Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2005-2006, Deputy Medical Director (Patient Safety) at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Consultant Paediatrician at the Royal Free Hospital 2006-2016; and North West London NHS Trust at Northwick Park Hospital 1996-2004. Previously he was a consultant paediatrician in Cape Town at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. He is the lead editor of the OUP Handbook on Patient Safety published in April 2022; co-editor of the OUP Handbook on Medical Leadership and Management published in December 2022; and editor of the OUP Handbook on Quality Improvement in Healthcare published February 2024.