Custom Healthcare Seminar
Launched in 2019, the Custom Healthcare Leadership Seminar brings together key stakeholders from the Aspen Healthcare & Quality of Life Program Community. Under the guidance of the moderators, the seminar would challenge 20 – 25 participants to explore, based on texts sent beforehand, contemporary critical issues facing the world and to have an informal, constructive debate on topics of relevance to the Aspen Healthcare & Quality of Life Program.
The debates also focus on the interaction between the main public, private, academic and non-governmental actors in the healthcare system. Dedicated to the Aspen Institute Romania’s Healthcare & Quality of Life Program Community, the seminar uses the Aspen Method of creating a group as diverse as possible in terms of professional sectors (private, public, non-profit), gender, political affiliation, gathering participants connected to or working in the healthcare system.
The Custom Healthcare Seminar provides a forum for leaders in the healthcare system to convene and explore contemporary issues through expert-moderated dialogue, facilitating the exchange of ideas. The Seminar is a collaborative endeavour, where the participants are asked to contribute their understanding of and reactions to carefully selected readings, with the guidance of moderators who are experts in their sector.
Participation to the seminar is by invitation only and each edition is organized in a picturesque location, which invites to introspection and reflection, away from the noise of the big cities.
By joining the Custom Healthcare Seminar developed by the Aspen Institute Romania, participants become part of a diverse alumni network of our Institute, which has grown to close to 1500 individuals from the entire world, from the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors.
The Custom Healthcare Seminar is organized at the intersection between the Aspen Leadership Programs and the Aspen Public Policy Programs of the Aspen Institute Romania and is being financed under the Aspen Healthcare & Quality of Life Program.
The 6th edition of the seminar was organized on April 25-27, 2024, and details about this edition are available here. The 7th edition of the Custom Healthcare Seminar will be organized in 2025.
Please find below information about the first 5 editions of the Seminar (2019 and 2023), developed in partnership with the Aspen Institute US – Socrates Program.
5th edition (in-person): May 11-13, 2023
- Location: Comana, Giurgiu County (Romania)
- Moderators: Dr. Kapil Parakh, Senior Medical Lead at Google and Dr. Vlad Mixich, Aspen Alumnus, health policy expert.
- 16 participants connected to or working in the healthcare system
Having as its main theme Financing Resilience Through Innovation in Healthcare: Is Having the Money Enough?, the seminar debated key challenges of different public healthcare systems and ways in which different policies and investments are shaping outcomes, looking to develop best practices for the Romanian health system.
4th edition (in-person): May 5-7, 2022
- Location: Snagov, Ilfov County (Romania)
- Moderators: Dr. Katherine E. Bliss, Senior Fellow and Director, Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience, with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center and Dr. Vlad Mixich, Aspen Alumnus, health policy expert.
- 16 participants connected to or working in the healthcare system
Having as its main theme The Future of Public Health: Building a More Resilient Post Pandemic System, the seminar explored the resilience of healthcare systems and key challenges in public medicine, in the context of the SARS – COV – 2 pandemic.
3rd edition (online): May 26-27, 2021
- Moderators: Dr. Jennifer Lee, Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University in Washington, DC and a Visiting Scholar at the National Academy of Medicine and Dr. Vlad Mixich, Aspen Alumnus, health policy expert, with the support of Univ. Prof. Dr. Alexandru Rafila, Vicepresident of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies and President of the Aspen Healthcare & Quality of Life Advisory Board.
Having as its main theme The Future of Public Health: Building a More Resilient Post Pandemic System, the seminar explored the resilience of healthcare systems and key challenges in public medicine, in the context of the SARS – COV- 2 pandemic.
2nd edition (online): October 22-23, 2020
- 15 participants to the seminar, who became part of the Aspen Alumni community.
- Moderators: Dr. Jennifer Lee, Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, and Dr. Vlad Mixich, Aspen Alumnus, health policy expert, with the support of Univ. Prof. Dr. Alexandru Rafila, Aspen Healthcare & Quality of Life Program Director
- Guest speakers: Carmen Mihălcescu, Vice-President of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies, and Cristian-Silviu Bușoi, Member of the European Parliament.
The seminar had as its main theme The Future of Public Health: Building a More Resilient Post Pandemic System and it debated the resilience of healthcare systems and key challenges in public medicine, in the context of the SARS – COV- 2 pandemic.
1st edition (in-person): October 11-13, 2019
- Location: Pitaru, Dâmbovița County (Romania)
- 17 participants to the seminar, who became part of the Aspen Alumni community.
- Co-moderators: Adrian Bot, M.D., Ph.D, Vice President, Translational Medicine; Dr. Kapil Parakh, Medical Lead, Google Fit; Simona Bot, Vice President, Community Outreach, Blue Heron Foundation and Univ. Prof. Dr. Alexandru Rafila, Aspen Institute Romania Healthcare & Quality of Life Program Director.
The Custom Socrates Leadership Seminar 2019 was partially underwritten by the Simona and Adrian Bot family. Having as its main theme Technology, Breakthrough Medical Research and the Future of Healthcare, the seminar explored the ways in which public health policies expand and evolve in transforming democratic societies.