Dirk Horemans
Program Officer, Integrated Health Services department, WHO
Dr Dirk Horemans is a medical doctor and senior public health professional with over 35 years of experience. He currently serves as a Program Officer in the Health Services Performance Assessment unit of the Integrated Health Services department at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters. Dr. Horemans joined WHO in 2014 during the West African Ebola outbreak to support health system recovery efforts in the affected countries.
Dr Horemans' work focuses on primary healthcare measurement, health services resilience, health system-health security convergence, and healthcare provision in emergency situations and fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable settings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Horemans successfully led WHO’s efforts on measuring national and global health services capacity through national rapid frontline health facility assessments and the Global Pulse Surveys on continuity of essential health services.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr. Horemans held various positions and worked at different levels of the healthcare system. He served as a project manager and senior health policy advisor for the Greek health system reform, as a project manager and health advisor in Cambodia, and a health advisor in Lao PDR. He was co-director at the “Centre Hospitalier de Kigali”, and district medical officer and hospital director in Mwinilunga, a rural district in Zambia. As consultant he also worked with different organizations (BTC, EDF, GIZ, HIB, KFW, UNFPA, USAID, World Bank Group) supporting them with development of health sector plans and health project evaluations in Africa and Asia.
Dr. Horemans obtained his medical degree from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and holds a Diploma in Public Health and Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp and a Master of Science in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.