Key Note Speakers

Facilitator

Dr Karl

Whenever the announcer gives out the phone number for Karl Kruszelnicki’s famous Science Talkback show on Triple J, on Thursday mornings - so many calls come in that the ABC switchboard crashes! Karl has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery and has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids’ Hospital in Sydney. In 1995 he took up the position of the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, spreading the good word about science and its benefits. His enthusiasm for science is totally infectious and no one is better able to convey the excitement and wonder of it all than Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is.  

Keynote speaker

Dr Sohail Inayatullah

Dr Sohail Inayatullah is a political scientist, a Professor at Tamkang University, Taipei (Graduate Institute of Futures Studies), and a Visiting Academic/Research Associate at Queensland University of Technology (Centre for Social Change Research).
He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Faculty of Social Sciences and the Arts); and, Associate, Transcend Peace University.
Inayatullah is a Fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation and the World Academy of Art and Science. He is on the International Advisory Council of the World Future Society, and on the Professional Board of the Futures Foundation, Sydney.
In 1999, he held the UNESCO Chair at the Centre for European Studies, University of Trier, Trier, Germany and the Tamkang Chair in Futures Studies at Tamkang University, Taipei, Taiwan. From 1981 to 1991, he was senior policy analyst and planner with the Hawaii Judiciary, where he co-ordinated the Court’s Foresight Program.

Professor Desley Hegney

Professor Desley Hegney published the first research into rural nursing practice in Australia. Since 1997 she has continued to examine the factors that impact upon recruitment and retention of the nursing workforce, particularly nurses working in primary care (occupational health nurses, rural and remote area nurses, community nurses and nurses working in general practice). She has extended her focus to examine the similarities and differences between nurses who work in different geographical localities and in different health care settings (public/private aged care/community care/hospitals). Her work on recruitment and retention of rural nurses has been cited extensively both within Australia and internationally. Additionally, her work into the role and function of rural and remote area nurses has been used as a basis for the design of both undergraduate and postgraduate curricula in rural and remote area nursing. At present she has broadened her focus to a primary health care nursing model and is currently undertaking work into the acceptability and feasibility of nurse-led models of care in general practice with a team of nurses and general practitioners.

Since commencing as the Director of the Research and Practice Development Centre at the University of Queensland and Blue Care, she has also begun to focus on the health of older people. Studies currently underway are factors influencing individual and personal resilience and the mental health and wellbeing of older people.

She established the Association for Australian Rural Nurses Inc in 1992 and was the inaugural president of both the national and Queensland branches. She was also the foundation editor of the Australian Journal of Rural Health (1992-2002). She was appointed to the executive of the ICNs Rural and Remote Nursing Network, established in Canada in 2004.

Other focuses of her research have been on health service delivery in rural areas. She has examined a broad range of access issues such as: rural peoples experience of accessing radiotherapy; how rurality impacts upon the duration of breastfeeding; the needs of the elderly in rural and remote locations; and the delivery of palliative and cancer care to people in rural areas. Many of the recommendations of these research projects have been implemented and/or models have been sustained within the health service after completion of the research.

Keynote speaker

Linda Hardy

Linda is currently the Executive Director Toowoomba Hospital. Starting her career as a student nurse in a medical ward almost 20 years ago, Linda has since delivered, managed and developed health care services and initiatives across a diverse range of acute, community, rural and policy settings.

Linda has a strong background in transforming organisations and work units using an interpersonal and team approach. An accomplished leader, her vision and expertise in health service improvement, and innovative models of care, have driven notable change agendas. Offering a rare blend of grass roots support and involvement, and strategic and operational strengths, Linda is particularly focused on transforming the traditional boundaries of leadership, and in supporting and promoting the efforts of those who make a difference at the bedside. Linda was a 2007 recipient of the Queensland Health Director General’s award for Leadership, and is an Associate Fellow with the Australian College of Health Service Executives.

Keynote speaker

Roy Simpson

Roy L. Simpson, R.N., C, FNAP, FAAN, is vice president, nursing, at Cerner Corporation a publically held multi-billion dollar corporation based in Kansas City, Missouri. . As such, he is responsible for strategic sales and relationships for the patient care enterprise, as well as representation at the industry level for Cerner’s nurse practice. Simpson has more than 30 years of experience in nursing informatics and senior executive administration. His primary executive research focus pioneered the development and funding of the Nursing Minimum Data Set (NMDS). NMDS is a minimum set of nursing data elements with uniform definitions and categories, including nursing problems, diagnoses, interventions and patient outcomes approved by the American Nurses Association.

Simpson served on the board of trustees for Excelsior College, formerly Regents College, at the State University of New York. Other board elections, appointments and committees held in the past include the American Academy of Nursing where he currently holds Chair of the Expert Panel in Nursing Informatics, National League for Nursing and charter member of the National League for Nursing Educational Foundation, American Organization of Nurse Executives, American Medical Informatics Association and the American Nurses Association along with other national and state professional organizations.

 He served as distinguished professor at the University of Wales during the European Summer School on Nursing Informatics in 2002. In 2001, he served as the Frances and Earl Ziegler Visiting Scholar at the University of Oklahoma and as the Merle Lott Distinguished Lecturer at Georgia State University. Among his numerous awards and honors, he received the Informatics Award from Rutgers University in 1999, and the Maes MacInnis Award, from New York University in 2003. In 2007, Simpson was awarded honorary international membership in the International Medical Informatics Association and also international membership in Sigma Theta Tau International both of which represent scholarship to the knowledge of informatics.

Simpson lectures extensively around the world and has published more than 600 articles on nursing informatics and sits on twelve editorial review boards. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, New York Academy of Medicine, and the National Academies of Practice.

Keynote speaker

Salma Debs-Ivall

Salma Debs-Ivall, RN, MScN, is the Senior Nurse Consultant for Content & Marketing of the NurseONE Portal at the Canadian Nurses Association. She has over 20 years of experience in nursing across the clinical, education, research and leadership domains. She has been involved in several regional, provincial & national projects and has presented at numerous regional, provincial, national and international conferences.  Her interests stem from the expressed needs of nurses for access to relevant, timely, and credible information for safe practice.

Keynote speaker

Rosemary Bryant

Rosemary Bryant is Executive Director of Royal College of Nursing, Australia.  She has had a broad career in acute hospital and community nursing, as well as in government relations.  Executive positions she has held include assistant director of acute health in the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services, director of nursing at both Royal Adelaide Hospital and a community nursing organisation and the chief government nurse in Victoria.  She also spent some time in private consulting including consulting to the World Health Organisation. 

Rosemary has had a broad experience in policy development both in nursing and the broader health sector.  Her academic interests revolve around the regulation of health professionals, specifically relating to competence and the incidence of adverse events.  She is currently undertaking Doctorate studies on this topic.

Rosemary is a Commissioner, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

Rosemary was elected as the Second Vice President of the International Council of Nurses – the international body for nursing comprising of 129 member nations and representing 13 million nurses - in 2005.

Keynote speaker

Robert O’Donohue FRCNA

Robert began his nursing career in the seventies and worked in emergency, geriatrics, orthopaedics, acute medicine and psychiatry during his early years before taking on senior nursing positions in New South Wales and South Australian hospitals. In 1986 he was involved in the landmark career structure change that first took place in South Australia and was in a key position in one of the lead hospitals. Returning to New South Wales he was part of the planning team to rebuild Hawkesbury Hospital and then moved on to dealing with relocation of services from semi acute to acute services.
In 2005 Robert was elected to the Royal College of Nursing Australia board and served as the Vice President for 2 years and was heavily involved in the review of the board governance structure and formation of the National Advisory Structure. He is now the Vice Chair of the RCNA National Advisory Council. He works in Sydney for Sydney West Area Health Service as the Clinical Projects Co-ordinator assessing and implementing clinical information systems in a range of clinical environments. 

Keynote speaker

Susan McIndoe

Sue is the manager of the Informatics and Client Care Records department at Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) in Melbourne.  She completed her training as a registered nurse and midwife in Brisbane and still considers herself to be a Queenslander, even though she hasn’t lived there since 1987.  Sue first became interested in the use of information technology by nurses when studying for her Bachelor of Nursing and has since completed a post graduate diploma in Health Administration and Information Systems.  Sue joined RDNS in 1997 as a district nurse after 2 years in a similar role in the Northern Territory.  In 2000 Sue joined the Informatics department to coordinate the introduction of mobile computers across the organisation where her broad practical experience and informatics knowledge helped to bridge the gap between nurses and IT.

Sue is an active member of Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) and is on the executive of the Victorian Branch

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Updated: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4:34 PM