5 insights that stuck with me from Australian Healthcare Week 2025
What do I remember a month on from the event?
It’s all well and good to feel validated and inspired when you’re caught up in the excitement of being at a conference. But what do you truly remember after the moment has passed? Here are 5 things I heard over the two days that stuck with me after the hype died down.
1. You can’t improve the patient experience without looking after the people providing the care
Create an environment where your staff feel safe to speak up about their needs and concerns, and they in turn will create an environment where your patients feel safe to speak up about their needs and concerns. There is a ripple effect.
Examples of actions include:
Implementing a Code Lavender program. Whilst it may look and feel differently in each hospital around the globe, it is a mechanism by which signals can be sent out in situations where staff are in distress and are in need of spiritual or emotional support
Implementing a quick check in at the start of a shift and allocating workloads across the team in accordance to that. One format could be to ask “did we have a good morning/evening/night and is there anything in our personal lives that might impact us today?”
Keynote Panel Discussion: Creating a Roadmap Towards Patient Excellence - Measuring and Championing Patient Experience in Australian Healthcare
Speakers:
- Maree Ruge, Chief Nursing & Midwifery Informatics Officer, Metro North Health
- Sally Hasler, CEO, Women’s Health Victoria
- Anne Marie Hadley, Chief Experience Officer, NSW Health
- Brigitte Sigl, Consumer Consultant
- Katharine See, Chief Health Outcomes Officer, Northern Health
2. We need to be asking “what type of human connection do people want?” rather than assuming because the answer is going to be different for everyone
People don’t measure time in minutes and seconds, they measure it in experiences. Throw as much human relationships and human connections at creating change as possible, because change is about creating value for people, it’s not about the technology you are trying to implement.
Examples to consider:
For a young person with social anxiety, digital technology is going to be a game changer. For vulnerable people with language barriers, digital technologies may not be the best solution. Use digital technologies where it makes sense and free up time for high value human interactions
Start with the problem, not the technology. Clinicians are not adverse to change or technology where it is genuinely valuable and usable. The issue is that they are seeing people bring them too many shiny new technology based solutions without corresponding problems that they will solve
Panel Discussion: Perfecting the Hybrid Model - Maintaining Human Connection in Digitally Enabled Patient Care
Speakers:
- Alan Forbes, Chief Executive Officer, Patient Experience Group
- Glenn Pringle, General Manager, Strategy & Growth, IPC Health
- Natalie Wilson, Director, Transforming Your Experience, South Western Sydney Local Health District
- Dr. John Shephard, Deputy Director Clinical Governance & Medical Services, South Eastern Sydney Local Health District
- Alison Kingston, Patient Services & Experience Manager, St Vincent’s Private Group
Panel Discussion: Failure is Not an Option - Best Practices in Governance to Foster Digital
Speakers:
- Dr. John Shephard, Deputy Director Clinical Governance & Medical Services, South Eastern Sydney Local Health District
- Dr John Lambert, Chief Clinical Information Officer, Tasmanian Department of Health
- Naomi Dobroff, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Information Officer, Monash Health
- Gareth Sherlock, Former CIO, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and Cleveland Clinic London
- Dr Emily Kirkpatrick, Managing Director, EKology Health
- Peter Birch, Founder & CEO, Talking Healthtech
3. You need to consider what the best future state operating model is that sits behind and supports your change
There are three things you need to consider when looking at your workforce:
Job family frameworks: what is the work that we do in this organisation?
Capacity: how much time are people investing in the critical tasks of the organisation?
Capability: everyone talks about capability all the time in terms of skills and careers, but what we need to do is ask what capabilities are required to support capacity?
Align these three things to what you are trying to achieve; your strategy needs to be clear in order to do this.
Case Study: How Uniting strategically plans its workforce to optimise workforce capacity and capability
Speaker: Anat Hassner, Chief People and Strategy Officer, Uniting
4. We need more kindness in healthcare
Kindness is different to empathy, and is different to compassion. It is more than just being nice. It carries the benefits of improved patient care, buffers against burnout, improves relationships, and improves job satisfaction. As a part of the MDOK Program pioneered by the Sydney Local Health District, Concord Hospital has implemented a 4-part approach to kindness that includes:
kindness to others
kindness to self
kindness to community
kindness to the environment
Masterclass: Embedding a Strategy of Kindness: A 4-Part Practical Approach to Wellbeing
Speaker: Sandhya Limaye, Director of Wellbeing & Staff Specialist, Sydney Local Health District
5. We are in the early days of consciously building leadership capability into the healthcare system
The healthcare business will always be a human business, and we need to lean into leadership capability at all levels. We need to build adaptive leaders, leaders who can see around corners and bring people along on the change journey. We need to upskill our leaders to have the important career, feedback, and wellbeing dialogues.
Keynote Panel Discussion: Enabling the Healthcare Workforce to Deliver Effective Preventative Care
Speakers:
- Maree Ruge, Chief Nursing & Midwifery Informatics Officer, Metro North Health
- Heather Flynn, Director Workforce & Organisational Development, Albury Wodonga Health
- Rebecca Roberts, Group Chief People and Culture Officer, St Vincent’s Health Australia
- Lynden Roberts, Chief Medical Information Officer, Monash Health
Panel Discussion: Prioritising the Wellbeing Needs of Your Frontline Staff-Preventing Burnout and Enabling High-Quality Care
Speakers:
- Sandhya Limaye, Director of Wellbeing & Staff Specialist, Sydney Local Health District
- Hayley Farry, Executive Director Workforce, Sunshine Coast Hospital & Health Service
- Sally Laugesen, Associate Director - Organisational Development and Workforce Strategy, Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network
- Heather Flynn, Director Workforce & Organisational Development, Albury Wodonga Health
Panel Discussion: Futureproofing Your Workforce! Attracting, Retaining & Enabling Talent
Speakers:
- Sandhya Limaye, Director of Wellbeing & Staff Specialist, Sydney Local Health District
- Heather Flynn, Director Workforce & Organisational Development, Albury Wodonga Health
- Stewart Condon, Director Medical Services, Concord Repatriation General Hospital
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