Strengthening access: Partnerships in care pathways

Dr Mary Chrislyn Abadilla

A distinguished professional, Dr. Abadilla excels both in the medical and public service arenas. With a robust background in Anesthesiology, including a Specialty Residency in Anesthesia, Perioperative Medicine, Critical Care, and Pain Management completed from 2016 to 2019, brings a wealth of expertise to the healthcare field. Transitioning seamlessly into public service, Served as the Municipal Vice Mayor of LGU Banna from 2016 to 2022 and has been the Municipal Mayor since 2022. Key achievements include spearheading the Banna S.H.I.E.L.D program, successfully meeting the World Health Organization’s target of 90% HPV vaccination coverage for girls under 15 years old well before the global 2030 target. Additionally, Dr. Abadilla has championed the preservation of cultural heritage through Inabel Weaving Training for Banna’s youth. As the first Mayor to forge a partnership with the National Government and Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center, Dr. Abadilla established the pioneering BUCAS Center, ensuring Banna leads in providing quality and inclusive healthcare in the province.

Prof. Sónia Dias

Sónia Dias is Dean and Full Professor at the NOVA National School of Public Health, Lisbon, Portugal. She has years of experience in the field of public health and sociobehavioural sciences, especially in the study of health needs as well as design, implementation, and evaluation of health-promoting interventions. Her work seeks to produce evidence for innovative policies and action strategies that address complex public health issues to improve populations’ health. She has been very much involved in the Social Prescribing (SP) movement in Portugal from its beginning, as coordinator of the Knowledge Centre on Social Prescribing and Social Prescribing Portugal Network. At the international level, she is Co-chair of the International Social Prescribing Collaborative.

Mr Don Hoeler, FACHE

Donald Hoeler, MHA, FACHE, is Head of Global Health Policy and Patient Access Research at Intuitive, where he leads work translating health policy, public funding, and patient access evidence into expanded access to minimally invasive and robotic-assisted surgery. His team focuses on reducing structural barriers to advanced surgical care across rural and socially vulnerable communities in the United States and internationally.

With more than two decades at Intuitive spanning commercial and policy roles, Don brings deep fluency in both the clinical and business dimensions of surgical technology adoption. His current work centers on the U.S. Rural Health Transformation Program as a replicable model for aligning federal investment with the capital, workforce, and infrastructure barriers that perpetuate rural surgical inequity.

Don is a co-author of research examining the association between surgical robotic availability and open operation rates, and his implementation science work is grounded in established frameworks for evaluating adoption in resource-constrained settings. He holds a Master of Health Administration, is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), and is pursuing a Doctor of Health Science. He is motivated by a personal commitment to expanding surgical access in underserved communities.

Mr Sarwar Hussain Mohammed

Sarwar Hussain is a healthcare quality, patient safety, and facility management professional with over 20 years of experience in hospital operations, accreditation, risk management, and quality improvement. He holds a Master of Hospital Management and is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Health. He is also a graduate of Harvard Medical School’s Executive Program in AI in Healthcare, with a strong interest in applying artificial intelligence to improve healthcare quality, patient safety, and operational excellence.

Throughout his career, Sarwar has led and supported numerous strategic initiatives, including the design and implementation of electronic incident reporting and risk management systems, medication management improvement projects, and multidisciplinary patient safety programs. He has extensive experience in international healthcare accreditation standards and continuous quality improvement.

His professional credentials include CPHQ, CPPS, PMP®, CMSO, CSSMBB, CKPI, IDHSE, NEBOSH, IOSH, NFPA, and FISQua. Sarwar serves as an Editorial Review Board Member for The Journal of Patient Experience and is an international speaker on healthcare quality, patient safety, facility management, sustainability, and healthcare innovation. He is passionate about advancing safer, smarter, and more sustainable healthcare systems through leadership, evidence-based practice, and digital transformation.

Dr Aamena Salar

Dr Aamena Salar is a General Practitioner based in Birmingham, UK, with an extended role in Gynaecology and an Executive MBA (Distinction) from Warwick Business School. She founded the Modality Community Gynaecology Service in 2015, part of the NHS Vanguard five-year forward plan, before serving as Medical Director of Modality Outpatient & Private Services, where she established the Birmingham Women’s Health Hub: an independent, community-based model integrating primary and specialist gynaecology care across 18 outpatient specialities and serving over 150,000 people per annum. The hub has been cited nationally by the RCOG as an exemplar in women’s health service design.

Dr Salar holds the DRCOG and DFSRH diplomas, alongside postgraduate diplomas in Community Gynaecology and Diagnostic Hysteroscopy from the University of Bradford. She sits on national advisory boards including the Primary Care Women’s Health Forum and the Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, and advises policymakers through parliamentary and RCOG forums on women’s health strategy.

Her research includes co-authorship of a novel biomarker approach to ovarian cancer diagnostics and a co-contribution to the RCOG’s national position statement on uterine fibroid care. Dr Salar is a frequent speaker and media contributor on women’s health equity, integrated care, and primary care-led transformation.

Ms Maureen Michelle Sunio

Maureen Michelle Sinco Sunio is a Health Education and Promotion Officer II at the Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center (MMMHMC) in the Philippines. Before joining MMMHMC, she served as a Health Program Officer at the Department of Health Ilocos Center for Health Development from 2023 to 2025, overseeing health promotion programs in one province and one independent component city. She also served for nine years as a community nurse under the Department of Health’s National Health Workforce Support System.

At MMMHMC, she leads health promotion initiatives anchored on the Department of Health’s three key strategies: Healthy Governance, Health Literacy, and Healthy Settings. She spearheads the Build Impact and Deliver Adaptive (BIDA) Change in the Workplace movement, transforming the hospital’s Healthy Workplace Program through behavior change interventions guided by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. She also leads the Key Assistance for Developing Adolescents Network, a multisectoral behavioral intervention that aims to reduce adolescent health issues by 5%.

As a member of the hospital’s communications team, she develops strategic communication plans, writes feature stories, and co-leads health literacy campaigns and the Doctor Bombo radio program. She champions evidence-based strategies that empower communities through innovation, collaboration, and sustainable behavior change.