Join us for our welcome ceremony and opening addresses from:

Ashley McKimm, Editor-in-Chief, BMJ Innovations, BMJ; England

Susan Pearce, Secretary, Ministry of Health, NSW Health; Australia

Kedar Mate, President and Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Format: Keynote
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Content filters: Responses to the covid-19 pandemic

COVID, bushfires, floods and other crises have pushed health systems to their limits over the past few years. Yet this myriad of challenges have also strengthened and expanded our understanding of leadership and what it takes to navigate through these unprecedented times. In this session our speakers will reflect on how crises have tested and changed the way they lead, sharing the lessons they learnt along the way.

Euan Wallace, Victoria Department of Health; Australia

Stewart Dowrick, Mid North Coast Local Health District; Australia

Teresa Anderson, Sydney Local Health; Australia

Ashley Bloomfield, Ministry of Health; New Zealand

Format: Presentation
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Content filters: tbc

Advance to Zero Campaign is a groundbreaking national initiative of the Australian Alliance to End Homelessness that supports local collaborative efforts to end homelessness, starting with rough sleeping – one community at a time. Using a range of proven approaches from around the world communities are supported not just to address or even reduce homelessness, but to end it.

Improvement Science has been one of the key enablers of the global and Australian movement to end Homelessness.

This session will introduce the Advance to Zero Campaign, share how it’s being applied through the End Street Sleeping Collaboration in New South Wales, and discuss the opportunities for further integration of health and homelessness services through improvement science.

The Ends Street Sleeping Collaboration (ESSC) is a collective impact initiative whose goal is to halve rough sleeping across NSW by 2025 and work toward ending it by 2030. They are a collaboration between governments, non-government organisations, philanthropists, businesses, and the community who are committed to our vision that no person should sleep on the streets in NSW. As a not-for-profit organisation, the ESSC leads the collaborative effort and guide the collective impact of our partners.

David Pearson, Australian Alliance to End Homelessness; Australia

Jeremy Harris, End Street Sleeping; Australia

Erin Longbottom, St Vincent’s Hospital Homeless Health Service; Australia

Stream: Population and Public Health
Format: Presentation
Content filters: tbc

(Part One): Co-designing an age-friendly health system for the bush

Age-friendly health systems can prevent, delay or slow physical and cognitive declines, support healthy ageing, reduce health care costs, and improve staff morale.

This presentation will show you how one geographically dispersed region in rural Victoria worked with health administrators and economists, sub-acute and acute health services, primary health clinicians, and older people to codesign an integrated, age-friendly health system based on the IHI 4Ms Framework.

Kathleen Brasher, Upper Hume Primary Care Partnership; Australia

(Part Two): Implementing Virtual Clinical Pharmacy in Rural NSW Hospitals improves medication safety

Virtual pharmacy is an evolving model of care worldwide. This session will provide an overview of an Australian telehealth clinical pharmacy model which provides comprehensive support to clinicians and patients at rural and remote NSW hospitals. This model supports both patients and clinicians with the safe and quality use of medicines.

The session will cover the clinical services provided, key design considerations and experience with implementation. It will also include the services evaluation including demonstrated improvements in NSQHS standards, staff, and patient feedback and how the model could be translated into other healthcare environments.

Shannon Nott, Western NSW Local Health District; Australia

(Part Three): tbc 

Stream: Safety
Format: Workshop
Content filters: Features discussion of improvement methodology

Maternity Resilience Assessment – strengthening patient safety systems at scale in NSW health (across 8 million people)

This session will share the assessment process, themes, and improvements NSW health are making to support over 70 maternity units. This includes their governance and accountability framework, their new maternity database system, and their self- assessment guide. Join them to hear how this is benefiting the local services to improve safety and quality for patients.

Michael Nicholl, North Shore Hospital, Sydney; Australia

Harvey Lander, Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia

Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Format: Workshop
Content filters: tbc

(Part One): How can healthcare organisations sustainably build capacity in quality improvement?

Capability building in QI is a prerequisite for high functioning health systems. But how can it be sustained over a period of years? The Southern Adelaide Local Health Network Department of Surgery and Perioperative Medicine runs an internally developed capability and support program known as the Continuous Improvement Program (CIP). What is unusual, is the length of time (15?years) that the CIP has been in place. This means the CIP has had time to evolve and foster a continuous support infrastructure, experienced personnel, and corporate memory. We evaluated the key features of what makes QI sustainable.

Peter Hibbert, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University; Australia

Rob Padbury, Southern Adelaide Local Health Network; Australia

(Part Two): How can we achieve and sustain improvement in care & outcomes at scale?

There is a growing number of healthcare leaders and teams utilising improvement science to effective positive changes for patients.   However such efforts are often undertaken in siloes by individual clinical teams or hospitals, with limited capacity to achieve change for the benefit of all patients.  Many improvement leaders also express frustration about being unable to sustain improvement over time once a change champion moves on or new priorities emerge.

So how do we achieve lasting improvement at scale?  How do we co-ordinate and build upon the efforts of local change champions to spread the benefits of improvement equitably and widely?

This session provides two perspectives on this key question.  Barb Vernon is a not-for-profit leader in the women’s & children’s healthcare sectors with two decades of experience in working to improve care and outcomes across Australia.  Rebecca Reed is the leader of a government initiative at Safer Care Victoria aiming to positively impact on 100,000 lives through improvement programs affecting a range of healthcare consumers.   The presenters will tease out critical factors to successfully achieving – and sustaining – measurable improvements in patient care and outcomes.

Barb Vernon, Women’s & Children’s Healthcare Australasia; Australia

Rebecca Reed, Safer Care Victoria; Australia

Session sponsored by Wolters Kluwer

Join Wolters Kluwer Health to discuss the challenges and barriers to organizing, planning, and sustaining successful initiatives in clinical settings.

Learning outcomes:

• The challenges and barriers to organising, planning, and disseminating successful initiatives in clinical settings


• The key elements that should be considered when supporting clinical initiatives


• Discussion topics around how to increase the odds of sustainability.

Jon Ward, Wolters Kluwer; Australia

Stream: Population and Public Health
Format: Presentation
Content filters: tbc

As the lead agency for the Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC), the New South Wales (NSW) Clinical Excellence Commission IPAC team led the IPAC response to COVID-19, including responsibility for ensuring safe quality care of patients, staff and the general community in various settings from hospitals to aged care, airport to quarantine hotels and much in-between.

The CEC IPAC team will share their reflections and learning, including their cutting-edge approaches to:

• Governance and structure


• Innovative Guideline development


• Programs within programs


• Risk Escalation framework


• Health worker safety


• Leadership and mentoring of a new ICP workforce and future proofing this rare resource.

After this session, participants will:

• Understand the breadth of the NSW IPAC COVID-29 response


• Learn about new approaches implemented to keep the patients, staff and the community safe


• Hear about the useful tools and resources developed as part of the NSW COVID-9 pandemic response

Kathy Dempsey, Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC); Australia

Susan Jain, Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC); Australia

Format: Panel
Stream: Population and public health

PART 1: How Dreamtime stories can be used as an approach to communicate between healthcare providers and First Nations consumers

Dr Marjad Page will discuss how Dreamtime stories can be used as an approach to communicate between healthcare providers and First Nations consumers. Dreamtime stories are not just stories but are writings with cultural importance for the betterment of a community.

By using the language and structure of a Dreamtime story, vital information is presented in a culturally meaningful form so health providers can creatively engage and educate First Nations families. Health providers can unpack new metaphors hidden within the narrative, explaining challenging health concepts in a way that is memorable. The story therefore becomes a tool to facilitate feedback and intervention for children throughout the child’s healthcare journey.

This session will provide a detailed example of how a Dreamtime story was especially co-designed to support children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in remote primary care but ended up providing a blueprint for service delivery that empowered primary healthcare to effectively identify any child who was developmentally not on track.

The project provides an exemplar for true partnerships between community Elders, health practitioners, and university researchers. Healthcare outcomes from implementing this co-designed model of care will be presented.

Marjad Page, Kambu Health; Australia

Dianne Shanley, Griffith University; Australia

PART 2: Maori Health and Equity: The Maori Health Authority and lessons from COVID-19

There are persistent inequities for Maori (indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand) in healthcare access, healthcare quality, and overall health outcomes compared with non-Maori New Zealanders. Maori are less likely to access high quality healthcare, suffer a higher prevalence of long-term conditions, and have higher COVID-19 case rates, hospitalisations, mortality, and inequitable COVID-19 vaccination coverage.

This presentation will highlight lessons learnt and innovations sparked by the pandemic that can advance health equity through partnerships with communities, outreach and mobile services, and Maori leadership. It will also describe the health system reforms taking place within Aotearoa. At the centre of the changes is the establishment of two new organisations – Health New Zealand which will see our 20 District Health Boards become one organisation, and the Maori Health Authority which will provide new leadership on hauora Maori (Maori health).

Mataroria Lyndon, University of Auckland; New Zealand

Format: Presentation
Stream: Population and Public Health
Content filters: Co-presented with consumers, service users or carers

(Part One): Meaningfully involving service users and carers in quality improvement work

This session will be discussing an exciting new initiative to develop meaningful service user and carer engagement within quality improvement work at Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust. All work is co-produced with service users, carers, and staff at the Trust.

Delegates interested in improving co-production within their areas can learn from the work and create more meaningful working relationships between service users, carers, and clinicians.

Sarah McAllister, Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust; England

Sandra Jayacodi, Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust; England

Geetika Singh, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; England

Lucy Palmer, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; England

(Part Two): Partnering with the woman who declines recommended maternity care

Refusal of recommended maternity care can be a confronting issue for women, midwives, and obstetricians with clinical, legal, and ethical implications.

This presentation describes the development and implementation of co-designed, evidence-based resources to support informed decision-making, respectful care, and clinical, legal, and ethical safety when the woman declines recommended maternity care.

Lyndel Gray, Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Service, Clinical Excellence Queensland, Queensland Health; Australia

Bec Jenkinson, University of Queensland; Australia

Rebecca Kimble, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital, Queensland Children’s Hospital, and Faculty of Medicine, the University of Queensland; Australia

(Part Three): Co-designing person-centred comprehensive care planning across the care continuum

Models of healthcare have traditionally been episodic, and diagnosis centred. In an era of increased chronic illness and multi-morbidity, there is a clear need for health care to transition towards integrated, person centred and goal-oriented care. However, involving consumers in care planning decisions and aligning this with consumers’ values, needs and preferences across the care continuum and clinical specialties is operationally challenging.

This session will demonstrate how health services can co-design meaningful and implementable solutions for interdisciplinary person-centred care planning and delivery across the care continuum, using an Australian public health service as a case study.

Rebecca Barnden, Peninsula Health; Australia

Nadine Andrew, Monash University; Australia

Jo Hansen, Peninsula Health; Australia

(Part Four): Does mother know best?  A pilot study proactively assessing caregiver concern in the Paediatric Emergency Department.

A common theme after an adverse event involving a child is the parent reports, “I knew something was wrong, but nobody listened to me”.  Parents are experts on their own children, and it makes sense they might identify deterioration or serious illness earlier than Emergency Department (ED) clinicians.  We piloted a tool for proactive assessment of Caregiver Concern in the ED, with the aim to identify deteriorating paediatric patients at an earlier stage in their illness and reduce adverse patient safety outcomes.

Erin Mills, Monash Health; Australia

Liat Watson, Safer Care Victoria; Australia

Meg Harvey, Monash Health; Australia

Format: Workshop
Stream: Safety
Content filters: Features discussion of improvement methodology

Sentinel event review and Root Cause Analysis are powerful methods for understanding causes of failures in systems that can lead to unsafe care. Part of this methodology requires providing recommendations for systems improvement. It is not uncommon for recommendations to be incompletely implemented, have low levels of effectiveness and/or not be fit for purpose.

This workshop will provide you with theories and practical skills in how to improve the quality of recommendations. It will also draw on human factors theory and Deming’s principles of Plan Do Study Act cycles to maximise the success of implementation of recommendations.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand how to develop ‘strong’ recommendations and change strategies


• Gain in-depth knowledge of how to test recommendations using PDSA cycles to understand when they work and when they fail, prior to full implementation


• Understand the methods for measuring PDSA cycles


• Know how to develop a project plan to ensure recommendations are implemented in a timely manner.

Bernie Harrison, Australian Council on Healthcare Standards; Australia

Peter Hibbert, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University; Australia

Format: Roundtable

Stream: Building Capability and Leadership

Session sponsored by ASCOM 

This session will explore thought leadership in the field of better collaboration and communication, particularly looking at the pain points and identifying what support and solutions can be provided to solve these issues, particularly looking at the following key areas (but not all):

• The need for clinicians to be able to communicate effectively with each other in real-time, especially in the context of increased pressures and staff shortages across the supply chain


• Lessons learned during the pandemic and the rapid adaptation to new ways of working – what weaknesses were exposed with current systems


• Change management and to successfully adapt to new systems and processes


• Challenges around how to work across multiple stakeholders

Owen Hutchings, RPA Virtual Hospital; Australia

Melanie Berry, Western NSW CCIC (Covid Care in the Community); Australia

Karol Petrovska, NSW Ministry of Health; Australia

Aaron Hall, Agency for Clinical Innovation; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: Person and Family-Centered Care
Content filters: Co-presented with consumers, service users or carers


This session will ask a provocative question of our audience and a panel of consumers, clinicians and researchers who will debate for and against the motion. The question we propose is: are consumers the chief improvement change agents?

Jeffrey Braithwaite, International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua); Australia

Karen Patterson, Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC); Australia

Laila Hallam, Health Consumer Representative; Australia

Leanne Wells, Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Australia

Liz Newton, NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI); Australia

Liz Marles, Macquarie University; Australia

Paresh Dawda, Prestantia Health; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: Integrated Care
Content filters: Features discussion of improvement methodology

(Part One): Dementia and changed behaviours: Using person-centred care to reduce medicine-related harms 

Harms often outweigh benefits when using psychotropic medicines (e.g., antipsychotics and benzodiazepines) to manage changed behaviours in people living with dementia. Person-centred care has been effective at reducing use of psychotropic medicines while improving overall management of changed behaviours in people with dementia.

NPS MedicineWise led a multidisciplinary and multistakeholder collaboration in the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of an Australia-wide program. The program aimed to improve the quality use of psychotropic medicines in people living with dementia, across primary care and residential aged care facilities (RACFs).

This session will engage participants in processes used in program development.

Clare Weston, NPS MedicineWise; Australia

(Part Two): Regional Queensland Falls Collaborative: Multi-sector innovation reducing personal and system impact of falls

Speakers will share the secrets of municipal partnerships in developing the Wide Bay Falls Collaborative – Fraser Coast Falls Prevention Service Pilot Project.

Partnering with the Queensland Ambulance Service, Central Queensland, Wide Bay Sunshine Coast Primary Health Network, Hervey Bay Neighbourhood Centre, Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service, General Practice and consumers, this pilot is a patient-centred, biopsychosocial and salutogenic model. Combining evidence-based and best-practice methodologies to improve consumer safety, health and wellbeing, an integrated health and social care model promises to transform shared care across the patient health care journey.

Kristen James, Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service; Australia

Jasper Duane-Davis, Queensland Health; Australia

Format: Workshop 
Stream: Safety
Content filters: Co-presented with consumers, service users or carers

This session will explore restorative responses to complaints, conflict, and adverse events. The relational values and principles that underpin restorative practice and Hohou Te Rongopai (Indigenous peace-making) will be shared. Emerging theories of what works, for whom, how and in what contexts will be discussed with examples of their application in NZ, and the efficacy of responses provided. It will conclude with examples of how leaders, advocates and clinicians might best support the development of restorative responses in a co-design model and in partnership with Indigenous peoples.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Critically evaluate how healthcare harm is responded to within health systems, with a particular focus on the New Zealand approach.


• Appreciate the human and relational impacts on all those involved – patients, clinicians, organisations, and policy makers.


• Define the relational values and principles that underpin restorative practice and hohou te rongopai and their efficacy for different people and within different contexts.


• Reflect as to how they might be able to support the development of restorative responses in their own context.

Jo Wailling, Centre for Restorative Practice, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington; New Zealand

Graham Cameron, Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka, / Bay of Plenty District Health Board/ Interim Public Health Agency; New Zealand

Heather Gunter, National Collaborative for Restorative Initiatives in Healthcare / Heath Quality Safety Commission; New Zealand

Caroline Tilah, Health Quality Safety Commission; New Zealand

Format: Presentation
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Content filters: Responses to the covid-19 pandemic

Session sponsored by RLDatix

If innovation and autonomy are part of the answer to happier workplaces, how do we practice and support this through quality and assurance processes in the wake of the past three years? What is preventing us, what are the costs if we don’t and what are the safeguards to make this adjustment?

Join us to discuss evidence and experiences that call for a fresh approach to safer experience for you patients, people and organisations.

Darren Kilroy, RLDatix

Mark Britnell, KPMG UK

Format: Keynote
Stream: tbc
Content filters: tbc

Derek Feeley, CB, DBA, is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). He returned home to Scotland in 2020 having spent seven years with IHI, latterly as President and Chief Executive. He was responsible for driving IHI’s mission and strategy to improve health and health care worldwide.

On his return to Scotland, he was appointed as the Chair of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care which reported to the Scottish Government in February 2021. He serves as Board Advisor to the East London Foundation Trust, is a Board member of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services and an Honorary Professor at the University of the West of Scotland. He also coaches and mentors several senior people in NHS Organisations.

Prior to joining IHI, Derek was the Director General for Health and Social Care in the Scottish Government and the Chief executive of NHS Scotland. In that position, he was the principal advisor to the Scottish Government on all health, health care, and social care policy matters as well as having leadership responsibility for NHS Scotland’s 140,000 staff. In 2013, Derek was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath by Her Majesty the Queen.

Derek Feeley, Former CEO and President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Scotland

Please join us at the International Forum Welcome Reception for a chance to relax, unwind and reconnect with colleagues old and new, whilst enjoying the views over the Darling Harbour.

Format: Presentation
Stream: tbc
Content filters: tbc

Session sponsored by GE Healthcare

Patient safety and ensuring optimal care for recovering patients are priorities for every hospital. A way to do this is to keep patients moving and to continuously monitor key vital signs, including respiratory rate. While this sounds easy, finding a simple and reliable way to support monitoring patients in the general ward setting has been a challenge.

In this session, Ben Edwards from GE Healthcare will explore this challenge and what is happening to meet this challenge.

Ben Edwards, GE Healthcare; Australia

Tuesday 26 July 2022 | 08:00-09:00

Format: Workshop
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership

Sponsored by SimConverse

Learn cutting-edge educational techniques for training communication skills across the health workforce. Find out how AI can be used to combat the thousands of communication errors that occur in healthcare daily, and how we as educators can better train our workforce. SimConverse harnesses AI to play the role of any patient, colleague or casualty and are impacting the quality and safety of healthcare across the world.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand a learning theory approach to better structure your communication skills training.


• Learn how modern AI can be used to improve scalability and assessment of communication skills training.


• Appreciate the fidelity of training now possible and the need for our collective improvement.

William Pamment, SimConverse; Australia

Day Three opening remarks delivered by:

Karen Luxford, Group CEO, Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) & ACHS International

Format: Keynote
Stream: tbc
Content filters: tbc

A paediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and on the staffs of Boston’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has also served as Vice Chair of the US Preventive Services Task Force, the first “Independent Member” of the American Hospital Association Board of Trustees, and Chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

He served two terms on the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Governing Council, was a member of the IOM’s Global Health Board, and served on President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. Recognized as a leading authority on health care quality and improvement, Dr. Berwick has received numerous awards for his contributions.

Donald M. Berwick, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Format: Presentation 
Stream: Population and Public Health

Session details to follow shortly.

Forbes McGain, Western Health; Australia

Scott McAllister, University of Sydney and University of Melbourne; Australia

Martin Hensher, Menzies Institute for Medical Research of the University of Tasmania; Australia

Alexandra Barratt, University of Sydney; Australia

Kate Charlesworth, NSW Health; Australia

Format: Workshop
Stream: Person and Family-Centred Care
Content filters: Includes examples of using technology to enable change

This session will provide an overview of the key steps involved in co-designing evidence-based digital consumer resources for use in acute care settings.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand the key components required to co-design evidence-based resources with consumers


• Use design thinking to promote creative solutions and problem solving


• Integrate evidence-based practice and consumer perspectives


• Understand the technical requirements for harnessing digital platforms and multimedia applications

Stacey Goad, Epworth HealthCare Freemasons; Australia

Damien Khaw, Deakin University/ Epworth HealthCare Partnership; Australia

Jane Willcox, Deakin University/ Epworth HealthCare Partnership; Australia

Ana Hutchinson, Deakin University/ Epworth HealthCare Partnership; Australia

Format: Workshop
Stream: Safety

Safety Intelligence entails providing clinically relevant data to inform safety and quality and is a key strategic priority for the NSW Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC). Safety intelligence requires a shift away from traditional approaches to data use in healthcare and focuses on

• Improvement rather than judgement

• Anticipation rather than reaction

• Curiosity rather than reporting

In NSW, safety data is provided down to clinician level through a range of CEC designed and developed safety databases. These provide an opportunity to use a safety intelligence approach to attain deeper insights regarding safety drivers, targeted drilldown analysis, report automation and predictive system monitoring.

This session will demonstrate the expanding work of safety intelligence by the CEC in NSW.

Trish Bradd, Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia

Jim Mackie, Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia

Steve Bowden, Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia

Format: Leadership summit
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Content filters: n/a

This summit is an opportunity for leaders to reflect on how their organisations are faring during these challenging times, and to consider ideas with an international panel on how we can build back better health systems.

We will explore how leaders can shift from responding to the relentless pressures and ongoing impacts of COVID, to creating the conditions and mobilising their teams to transform health care.

Donald M Berwick, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Derek Feeley, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Scotland

Helen Bevan, NHS Horizons; England

Session Sponsored by CDIA

Format: Presentation
Stream: Improvement Methods

Poor clinical documentation is a major patient safety concern and can contribute to communication breakdowns between clinicians, medication errors, and preventable patient harm. Hear from Australian leaders in CDI on how embarking on a CDI journey towards sustained cultural change can improve patient safety.

Nicole Draper, CDIA; Australia

Mike Kertes, CDIA; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: Improvement Methods
Content filters: tbc

Globally, future approaches to quality assessment and regulation are changing across several sectors. This panel session will consider disruptions to the ‘compliance model’, the development of risk-based approaches and the implications for health service assessments. The critical role of automated performance data in safety and quality to support assessment in key clinical areas will be explored by panel members. Virtual assessments and short notice models aligned to support ‘safety first everyday’ will be discussed.

Amanda Larkin, South Western Sydney Local Health District; Australia

Donald M. Berwick, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Helen Bevan, NHS Horizons; England

Jean-Frederic Levesque, Agency for Clinical Innovation; Australia

Karen Luxford, ACHS; Australia

Kate Bowles, University of Wollongong; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: Person and Family-Centred Care
Content filters: tbc

(Part One): Exceptional Experience for Everyone – Using Metrics to Lead Change

Providing an exceptional experience for our patients and their families is a goal of all clinicians and health providers. This presentation outlines the St Vincent’s Health Australia journey, the nation’s largest not-for-profit health network, towards an exceptional patient experience. We will share the ‘St Vincent’s Experience’ strategy and show how measuring the right things has taken us from average to world-leading.

All clinicians and health providers strive to provide an exceptional experience for patients and their families. This presentation outlines the journey of St Vincent’s Health Australia – the nation’s largest not-for-profit health network – towards an exceptional patient experience. We will share the ‘St Vincent’s Experience’ strategy and show how measuring the right things has taken us from average to world-leading.

Jane Evans, St Vincent’s Health; Australia

Kylie Preece, St Vincent’s Health; Australia

(Part Two): Real-time patient feedback and improved patient experience

Improving patient care experience is integral to improving the overall care delivery. Learn how the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre uses real-time patient feedback to deliver more proactive, personalised, and value-driven healthcare. The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre has implemented this tool to capture feedback from over 500 patients to understand their experience of care and service.

Kylie Thitchener, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre; Australia

(Part Three): Applying a taxonomy for patient complaints in a New Zealand regional hospital

Patient complaints are a valuable source of information about the quality and safety of healthcare systems; however, they are generally addressed in an individualised way. To enable patient complaints to drive quality and safety improvement, a standardised method of categorising complaints is required. Reader, Gillespie, and Robers (2014) created such a taxonomy. Our study applies this system to patient complaints in a regional hospital in New Zealand and discusses implications for quality and safety improvement in this setting. This presentation will enable delegates to gain an understanding of the value of patient complaints data, and how it can be used to improve healthcare systems in a systematic way.

Apurva Kasture, Taranaki District Health Board; New Zealand

Format: Workshop 
Stream: Quality, Cost, Value
Content filters: tbc

Excessive and inequitable waiting times for outpatient and community services lead to poorer health outcomes, anxiety, and reduced engagement with services. Long waiting lists leading to delays in care are often considered to be the result of a disparity between demand and supply. They have developed a data-driven, evidence-based model for managing demand known as Specific Timely Appointments for Triage (STAT) that has been shown to reduce, or even eliminate, waiting lists.  This workshop will introduce service providers to a practical, step by step approach for tackling this enormous challenge in the delivery of outpatient and community health services.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand the theoretical principles of the STAT model


• Describe the evidence for the effectiveness of STAT in reducing waiting time and the steps required for implementation


• Make an informed choice about the applicability of STAT for their health service

Katherine Harding, Eastern Health; Australia

Annie Lewis, Eastern Health; Australia

Nicholas Taylor, La Trobe University, Eastern Health; Australia

Format: Workshop 
Stream: Building Capability and Leadership
Content filters: Features discussion on improvement methodology

(Part One): Commitment to a speaking up and professional accountability culture is critical to achieving zero preventable harm

Hear how a commitment to speaking up and professional accountability is achieving remarkable patient outcomes across a  multicultural workforce for Ramsay Health Care globally. With more than 110 hospitals and 77 000 staff and Visiting Medical  Officers across four countries, Ramsay Health Care is successfully tackling preventable patient harm through a speaking up and professional accountability culture.

Ramsay Health Care, in partnership with international healthcare education provider, Cognitive Institute, implemented an evidence based professional accountability programme to address behaviours that undermine a culture of safety.

Chanelle McEnallay, Ramsay Health Care; Australia

Stephen Priestley, Cognitive Institute; Australia

(Part Two): Happier Workers, Healthier Patient

Intuitively, we know that if we are well, in a work environment that supports us to do our best work the organisational outcomes are better. Utilising data from the Victorian People Matters Survey (2013-2018), insurance claims data form the Victorian Managed Insurance Agency (VMIA) and Hospital Acquired Complications (HACs) data from almost all Victorian health services clear correlations exist. For instance; the higher the employee engagement score the lower the insurance cost per claim, similarly the lower the number of HACs.

The outcomes of this work has implications for health system leaders as it presents potential led indicators to quality and safety outcomes, made even more important with the current depletion and exhaustion in health care workers globally.

Robyn Hudson, Safer Care Australia; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: The Big Picture
Content filters: Features discussion of improvement methodology

(Part One) Evolving whole system safety quality in Victoria

The focus is on the challenges within and outside the health system, the need to rethink safety and improvement and to evolve into a learning health system will be a key focus of this session.

Safer Care Victoria (SCV) is the Victorian safety and improvement agency created in 2017 as a recommendation from an investigation into a number of preventable baby deaths in one of the state’s health services, targeting zero. Since that time the Agency has created a reputation for supporting health services challenged by safety and care quality who report preventable harm after it has occurred.

Five years after its creation there is no single failing health service, but preventable harm and deaths continue across the system. SCV is now reforming to use its implementation expertise to intervene upstream to prevent rather than report and recommend following harm occurrence. We hope to learn from others who have already trodden this path.

Mike Roberts, Safer Care Victoria; Australia

(Part Two) Complexity and System Management

Health Care is in a transformative wave where many components need to be improved and innovative at the same time. Patients and people employed in the system percept the change as challenging and hard to understand.

The competence of system management and a positive leadership that fronts the question “What can be” becomes crucial to reduce negative tensions and contradictions. New images and narratives need to be developed. In this session, we will explore this together.

Göran Henriks, Qulturum; Sweden

Format: Workshop
Stream: Population and Public Health
Content filters: Co-presented with consumers, service users or carers

Suboptimal Health Status (SHS) is the physical state between health and disease, characterised by ambiguous health complaints in the absence of a diagnosable condition. SHS is considered a subclinical, reversible stage of pre-chronic disease. Detection of SHS has demonstrated the ability to predict the risk of certain chronic diseases before their onset, providing a window of opportunity to halt or reverse the progression of chronic disease.

Delegates will be introduced to concepts that can, 1) predict a person’s predisposition to disease before its onset, 2) reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases 3) challenge established practices using a robust evidence base.

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Understand that the current biomedical model of health has a reactive, delayed approach to treating non-communicable chronic diseases (NCD), that is, treatments are implemented after disease onset.


• Learn that SHS is aligns with Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (PPPM) by moving to a pro-active approach when managing NCD, i.e.: identifying persons at risk of developing chronic disease and initiating interventions earlier.


• Understand self-claimed “normal” health status may not represent health because asymptomatic subjects may carry chronic diseases at their early stage, such as cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis.


• Design and plan according to clinical needs, heterogeneity, and uncontrollability in precaution health studies.

Wei Wang, Edith Cowan University; Australia

Monique Garcia, Edith Cowan University; Australia

Format: Presentation
Stream: Improvement Methods
Content filters: tbc

Referral to a range of evidence-based services for people with mental health and long-term condition needs, in a large primary care organization serving high needs communities in Auckland NZ, had delivered generally good outcomes and experience.  However, despite a lot of work to improve access, only 35-40% of those referred were ever seen, so this remained a core quality issue.

This presentation will overview a series of collaboratives from 2013 on, which tested different approaches to addressing this issue, and culminated in pilots in 2017/18 of integrating 3 new roles into primary care teams, to better meet people’s holistic wellbeing needs.  An external evaluation was extremely positive, including that access rates in this new programme increased to over 90%.  Subsequently the Government funded the programme for national implementation over the period 2020 to 2025.

The three new roles will be described, progress with implementation summarised, and longer term quantitative and qualitative data will be presented regarding the programme’s outcomes.  This data shows that those accessing the new services are those with moderate to severe need, and indicates positive impact on access, outcomes, experience, and service utilisation.  There is also early indication of positive impact on population wellbeing.

David Cordyre, Tamaki Health; New Zealand

Format: Presentation
Stream: Quality, Cost, Value  
Content filters: tbc

(Part One): Value management at the point of care

This session explores an approach to ‘Value Management’ that engages multi-disciplinary teams in improving quality, reducing costs and utilising staff capacity.

Underpinned by improvement science and lean-based practices, this approach provides frontline teams with tools, communication practices, and timely data to enable them to deliver better value.

We will provide an overview of the key lessons learnt and results achieved from applying Value Management across health services in the USA, Scotland, and Qatar.

Lisa Mckenzie, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Australia

(Part Two): How to “PrOMoTe” Value-based Healthcare: Perspectives & Experiences from Singapore

In Singapore, the national Value-based Healthcare (VBH) Programme was initiated in 2017 to achieve timely, appropriate, and superior clinical outcomes that are affordable and sustainable.

SingHealth, the largest public healthcare delivery cluster in Singapore, has implemented VBH initiatives in several conditions across its institutions. The cluster consists of primary care services, secondary and tertiary hospitals, community hospitals and services.

This session shares the perspectives and experience in initiating VBH adoption in SingHealth, including a detailed sharing of implementation by one of the acute hospitals in SingHealth cluster, i.e., Changi General Hospital.

Jansen Koh, Changi General Hospital; Singapore

Lim Eng Kok, Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd (SingHealth); Singapore

(Part Three): Implementing a value-based health care framework at Dental Health Services Victoria: improving health outcomes that matter most to patients

To reduce health inequity and improve health outcomes for disadvantaged patients, Dental Health Services Victoria (DHSV) co-designed and implemented a value-based health care (VBHC) framework. Adopting the principles of VBHC into DHSV’s health service delivery model has resulted in a care process that is more patient-centric and has enabled clinicians to be more aware of patient health care needs.

Shalika Hegde, Dental Health Services Victoria; Australia

Susan McKee, Dental Health Services Victoria; Australia

Format: Keynote
Stream: Building Capacity and Leadership
Content filters: n/a

Embedding compassion throughout our healthcare ecosystem is our next critical strategic move.

Over many years, Mary contributed to Australia’s national health and social care reform agenda through her work with state and commonwealth agencies. She has held executive leadership positions with national government, not for profit health care and social welfare services and in 2014 she founded Change Day Australia.

Mary Freer, Compassion Revolution; Australia