Speaker Profiles

Alison has more than 25 years experience as both a clinician and an executive in the public healthcare sectors of the United Kingdom and Australia.

Now as the Director of the Quality, Safety and Patient Experience Branch, Department of Health in Victoria, Alison takes a leadership role in shaping the quality agenda for the state and collaborating with other state and territory counterparts on national issues.

Laureate Professor Rob Sanson-Fisher has achieved national and international recognition for his work in health behavioural research. His work combines behavioural and public health approaches to health promotion, health service evaluation and cancer control. He has published more than 354 peer reviewed research papers. Current Research interests are in changing health care providers' clinical behaviour to be more aligned with best evidence practice; primary prevention and increasing appropriate screening. He is currently involved in a cluster randomised control trial to encourage appropriate diabetes screening at indigenous health clinics, improving diabetes control in general practice and appropriate use of thrombolysis for stroke patients.

Laureate Professor Sanson-Fisher was the initiator of the Hunter Centre for Health Advancement and inaugural Director of the New South Wales Cancer Education Research Program. These research achievements were recognised with the group being designated a WHO Centre of Excellence. Sanson-Fisher was also the inaugural director of the Commonwealths National Cancer Control Initiative. He has been the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and in 2000 he was awarded the Hunter Medical Research Institute Award for Research Excellence. He was made a Laureate Professor at the University of Newcastle in 2008 and received an honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Waterloo in Canada in the same year. In 2009, he was awarded an Order of Australia

Dr Ian Scott is a consultant general physician with interest in cardiology, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at Monash University and the Centre for Research Excellence in Patient Safety in Melbourne. He is a current member of the Patient Safety and Quality Executive Committee of Queensland Health and the Quality Expert Advisory Group of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He has led several multi-hospital quality improvement collaboratives relating to cardiac care and has authored more than 120 papers in the field of health services research, evidence-based medicine and quality improvement.

Bernie Harrison is the Director of Organisational Development and Education at the Clinical Excellence Commission in Sydney Australia. She has run training programs in health care improvement for the last ten years both nationally and internationally. In addition to her substantive quality and safety education portfolio at CEC, she led the development and directed the base line survey of the CECs Quality Systems Assessment Program and is the program director for the Blood Watch Program which is a CEC led transfusion medicine improvement program. She is a clinical lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney and has a clinical background in the UK in neurosurgical intensive care and midwifery.

Kirstine Sketcher-Baker has a statistical background with a longstanding interest in monitoring patient safety and quality of care in hospitals.

Kirstine has led the development of the Variable Life Adjusted Display (VLAD) statistical methodology and the development of supporting tools and business processes to successfully implement VLADs throughout Queensland public and private hospitals and more recently Alberta Health Services, Canada.

She is currently a member of the Queensland Health Patient Safety and Quality Executive VLAD Subcommittee and the National Core Indicators Working Party.

Dr Hoyle is Executive Director, Medical Services Adelaide Health Service, based at Royal Adelaide Hospital.

With a clinical background in rural general practice, Philip has worked as a senior manager and medical director in hospitals and health systems, large and small, in Australia and the UK. Previous roles include Director of Clinical Governance and Director of Acute Services for Northern Sydney Area Health Service, Executive Director of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, General Manager of Royal North Shore Hospital, various senior medical management roles and Director, Clinical Services Strategic Review, Royal Victoria Infirmary NHS Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Carol Bennett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia (CHF) – the peak organisation for health consumers in Australia. Ms Bennett leads CHF's work to ensure a strong consumer voice and consumer participation in health reform through advocacy, policy development and consumer research.

Ms Bennett has worked at the executive level in health organisations for the last 15 years, including as CEO of peak national and state health bodies, and major consultancy roles with organisations including beyondblue.

A Masters Graduate in Public Policy from the Australian National University, Carol is committed to the role of non-government organisations as drivers of improved health outcomes for their communities.

Professor Peter Cameron is Head of the Critical Care Research Division within the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine, Monash University. Peter is also Academic Director of the Emergency and Trauma Centre at The Alfred Hospital, Head of the Victorian State Trauma Registry and Associate Director of the National Trauma Research Institute. He chairs the Victorian Orthopaedic State Registry and the Bi-national Burns Registry Steering Committees. In 2010 Peter was appointed as Head of the International Federation of Emergency Medicine.

Past appointments include Professor of Emergency Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Chief of Service, Prince of Wales Hospital Hong Kong; Professor/Director of Emergency Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Director of Emergency Medicine, Geelong Hospital. Peter is also a Past President of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (ACEM), co-editor of the Adult and Paediatric Textbooks of Emergency Medicine and a senior examiner for ACEM.

Guin has worked with the Australian Bureau of Statistics for six years, three of which have been in the area of health and disability. She has been involved with the development and design of the ABS Patient Experience Survey since its inception, and was responsible for the publication of 2009 data (see Health Services: Patient Experiences in Australia, 2009 (cat. no. 4839.0.55.001)).

Master in Business Administration (University of Newcastle), Bachelor of Communication (Charles Sturt University), Member Australasian Association for Quality in Healthcare.

Jane Gray joined Hunter New England Health as the Director of Innovation Support in November 2009. Before this, she led NSW Health's Patient and Carer Experience Program for the Health Services Performance Improvement Branch from 2006-2009. Previously, she was the Director of Communication for Hunter Health.

Jane is passionate about understanding and improving staff, patient and carer experience of the public health system. She led a successful Experience Based Codesign program in 7 NSW Emergency Departments from 2006-2009. She now leads a team to support clinical leaders who genuinely want to make things better for patients and carers. She has a growing interest in workplace joy and is delighted by recent evidence that this is a strong contributor to patient safety.

Jo Bourke is the Director of Clinical Governance at Barwon Health. She has extensive experience in quality, patient safety and risk management in both public and private health sectors and across the Victorian health care system.

She is a past member of the Australian Private Hospital Association's Quality and Safety Committee and is a current member of the Victorian Quality Council.

Stephen Gill is a clinical researcher and project manager for the Clinical Governance Unit, Barwon Health. Dr Gill's current research activity includes the implementation and evaluation of initiatives to improve the quality of patient and staff experiences at Barwon Health's Inpatient Rehabilitation Centre.

Laureate Professor Rob Sanson-Fisher has achieved national and international recognition for his work in health behavioural research. His work combines behavioural and public health approaches to health promotion, health service evaluation and cancer control. He has published more than 354 peer reviewed research papers. Current Research interests are in changing health care providers' clinical behaviour to be more aligned with best evidence practice; primary prevention and increasing appropriate screening. He is currently involved in a cluster randomised control trial to encourage appropriate diabetes screening at indigenous health clinics, improving diabetes control in general practice and appropriate use of thrombolysis for stroke patients. Laureate Professor Sanson-Fisher was the initiator of the Hunter Centre for Health Advancement and inaugural Director of the New South Wales Cancer Education Research Program. These research achievements were recognised with the group being designated a WHO Centre of Excellence.

Sanson-Fisher was also the inaugural director of the Commonwealths National Cancer Control Initiative. He has been the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and in 2000 he was awarded the Hunter Medical Research Institute Award for Research Excellence. He was made a Laureate Professor at the University of Newcastle in 2008 and received an honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Waterloo in Canada in the same year. In 2009, he was awarded an Order of Australia

Dr Evans is a clinical epidemiologist and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow. She holds the position of Associate Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Patient Safety (CRE-PS) and senior lecturer at Monash University. CRE-PS is based in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and was established to lead research to improve patient safety and develop clinical researchers who will lead this work into the future.

Sue completed her PhD in 2006 through the Department of Medicine, University of Adelaide. She has a keen interest in improving measurement of quality in health and co-authored the National Operating Principles for Clinical Quality Registries for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, which was ratified by Australian Health Ministers in 2010. She has published in excess of 40 peer reviewed manuscripts.

Dr Evans is a member of national and state based Committees established to improve quality of datasets to measure quality of care and is Chair of the Australian Stroke Registry Independent Task Group. Dr Evans is the database custodian and Steering Committee member of the Prostate Cancer Registry (PCR), established in August 2009 and the recently established Victorian Lung Cancer Registry. In 2009, Sue became a Fellow of the Australasian Association for Quality in Health Care (AAQHC).

Belinda Westlake holds a B App Sc in Health Information Management, a Master in Assessment and Evaluation and is currently completing a Grad Certification in Strategic Risk Management. She is a Fellow of AAQHC. She has spent most of her career working in Quality and Risk in Rural and Regional Health Services in Victoria. Her area of interest includes the complexities of rural health services and the opportunities in these facilities for quality improvement and innovation. Belinda currently works as the Information, Quality and Risk Manager at Moyne Health Services in Southwest Victoria.