Safer Care Victoria

Sarah is a physiotherapist by background, she transitioned into the Innovation and Improvement space after spending 15 years working clinically in public and private settings in Australia and in the UK. Sarah has recently come back into this area after a couple of years working on the Monash Health EMR Implementation, as the Team Lead for Clinical Documentation. Sarah has formal qualifications in Lean and Agile, and completed the Health Systems Management course at the University of Melbourne in 2017.

Gurnit started her career in Management Consulting and moved through a number of different job roles and industries including Services, Telecommunications, Construction and Retail. 

Gurnits start with Mercy Health in 2017 was her first introduction to the health industry. Gurnit has since worked on a number of different projects across both of Mercy Health’s campuses – Mercy Hospital for Women and Werribee Mercy Hospital. 

Liz is a registered nurse who has worked in management roles for the past 20 years in metropolitan Melbourne including Day Procedure, CSSD, infection prevention and control as a nurse consultant.

Areas that interest Liz include patient safety, education in improvements in clinical practice and Ways of Working. Liz currently oversees the Innovation and Improvement work for the health service. 

Liz also has post graduate qualifications in immunisation, infection prevention and control, and perioperative nursing.

In addition to managing teams across the globe, Carolynne’s extensive organisational development, change management and improvement experience is complemented by her MBA and Master of International and Community Development. 

During her career she has been fortunate to build transferrable skills early, enabling her to:

Julie is a Registered Critical Care Nurse with a history of working as the NUM Emergency Department and Cardiac Units. Julie did her Post Grad Dip in HSM currently studying her Masters.

Julie moved into Improvement at BRHS a little by accident, but after her first “Lean” conference she was hooked. Julie enjoys project management from concept to completion working with teams building their capability.  

Jane is a paediatric rheumatologist and head of rheumatology at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, and senior research fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Centre.

Jane is also on the Victorian Government COVID Taskforce for healthcare worker infection prevention and wellbeing, and is a collaborator on the Pandemic Kindness Movement project.

B App Sc (Speech Pathology), Grad Cert Gerontology, Grad Cert Health Professional Education, Dip Project Management, Masters Health Services Management 

Noni has more than 30 years’ experience in public health, working initially as a speech pathologist and then within quality and safety across acute, sub-acute, aged care and community health services. She has worked in clinical and leadership roles in metropolitan, rural and remote health services.

Service Design Manager and Counselling Psychologist, EACH    

Rhianna Perkin is a service design manager at EACH in mental health, alcohol and other drugs, homelessness and youth services. She is also a counselling psychologist with a private practice offering supervision, coaching and consultation.  

Rhianna is passionate about working with individuals, teams, organizations and systems around creating sustainable change, adaptive leadership and safe, supportive and effective workplaces.

Intensivist and Director of Intensive Care Services, Eastern Health    

Owen is a systems thinker, and passionate about understanding people and supporting health professionals to thrive. Owen has supervised training, managed high performing teams, undertaken collaborative workplace redesign, delivered health worker Leadership training in Australian and internationally, and advocates locally and widely for workplace wellbeing.

Organisational Development Consultant - Health Services,  Mercy Health