Improvement and Innovation Showcase Series 17: Workforce Sustainability: Building the future of healthcare

Our Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case brings togeth­er teams from across the health sys­tem to con­nect, share and explore their expe­ri­ences of work­ing towards bet­ter health­care for all South Aus­tralians.

South Australia’s health­care sys­tem is only as strong as the peo­ple who pow­er it. That’s why our 17^th Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case is all about the work­force — spot­light­ing the bold ideas, local projects, and sys­tem-wide strate­gies that are shap­ing a sus­tain­able, skilled, and future-ready health work­force in SA. 

Aligned with our Strate­gic Direc­tion (2024−2027), this four-part series will explore how teams are redesign­ing work, expand­ing roles, and engag­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of health­care pro­fes­sion­als. From har­ness­ing the strengths of an inter­gen­er­a­tional work­force to reduc­ing burnout risk, this series is a must for any­one invest­ed in the future of health­care.

The Show­case is a free, tick­et­ed online webi­nar series held week­ly through­out Novem­ber and ear­ly December. 

Episode 51: Enabling sus­tain­able work­place well­be­ing through work redesign

Date: 13 Novem­ber 2025

Time: 1.00 pm — 2.00 pm (ACST)

Dis­cov­er how redesign­ing work can be a game-chang­er for sus­tain­ing well­be­ing and pre­vent­ing burnout in health­care. This applied research project, deliv­ered through a part­ner­ship between CEIH and WCHN, brings the­o­ry to life — show­cas­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of CEIH’s work­place well­be­ing frame­work, val­i­dat­ing a pre­dic­tive tool for burnout risk in health­care, and dri­ving change through gen­uine staff col­lab­o­ra­tion using co-design principles.

Tune in to learn more about these projects and dis­cov­er how South Aus­tralia is lead­ing change nation­al­ly and internationally.

Speak­er Bios:

Jodie Bow­man (Prin­ci­pal Project Offi­cer, Work­place Well­be­ing Part­ner­ships, CEIH)

Jodie Bow­man is a reg­is­tered nurse with 30 years of expe­ri­ence in nurs­ing prac­tice and clin­i­cal lead­er­ship. Her back­ground spans health pro­mo­tion, nurs­ing infor­mat­ics, ros­ter­ing, aged care man­age­ment, and serv­ing as a direc­tor of nurs­ing across a num­ber of coun­try hos­pi­tals. After relo­cat­ing to Ade­laide, she joined CEIH’s work­force well­be­ing part­ner­ships team, tack­ling process­es and actions to pro­tect and pro­mote the well­be­ing of health­care staff. Jodie has recent­ly deep­ened her exper­tise in good work design, apply­ing these prin­ci­ples to the health sector.

Kier­an Hig­gins (Prin­ci­pal Learn­ing & Organ­i­sa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Con­sul­tant, Women’s and Children’s Health Network)

Kier­an is a reg­is­tered psy­chol­o­gist (Gen­er­al) and Psy­chol­o­gy PhD stu­dent inter­est­ed in advanc­ing health­care work­er well­be­ing. Kieran’s cur­rent research is seek­ing to val­i­date a mod­el of work­place well­be­ing with clin­i­cians in the health­care sec­tor, with a focus on eval­u­at­ing the effect of organ­i­sa­tion­al fac­tors on burnout risk and its links to clin­i­cal per­for­mance. Kier­an had almost a decade of expe­ri­ence in pub­lic sec­tor human resources, how­ev­er returned to the ​‘light’ side of peo­ple at work. His cur­rent work at WCHN address­es the non-clin­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty of WCHN’s peo­ple, with focus­es on engage­ment, psy­choso­cial safe­ty, and work­place wellbeing.

Reg­is­ter for the event.

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Episode 52: Build­ing a sus­tain­able health sys­tem through expand­ed practice

Date: 20 Novem­ber 2025

Time: 1.00 pm — 2.00 pm (ACST)

Enabling the con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of a flex­i­ble, respon­sive and sus­tain­able health work­force, togeth­er with inno­va­tion in ser­vice deliv­ery by health prac­ti­tion­ers, is recog­nised as a key strat­e­gy to meet the cur­rent and emerg­ing health care needs of the Aus­tralian com­mu­ni­ty. This episode high­lights the imple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions of the South Aus­tralian Select Com­mit­tee on Access to Uri­nary Tra­cy infec­tion treat­ment focus­ing on the devel­op­ment of a pro­gram sup­port­ing improve­ments in patient access to care and reduc­tions in hos­pi­tal admis­sions through expand­ed scope of phar­ma­cist practice.

Speak­er Bios:

Nao­mi Burgess (Chief Phar­ma­cist, Depart­ment for Health and Wellbeing)

BPharm, M. Man­age­ment (Health Ser­vices), FSHP, FANZ­CAP, MPS MAICD
Naomi’s role as Chief Phar­ma­cist pro­vides expert advice, lead­er­ship and strate­gic direc­tion in regard to statewide leg­is­la­tion, pol­i­cy and pro­grams for phar­ma­cy, med­i­cines and health tech­nolo­gies to ensure the best pos­si­ble health out­comes for all South Aus­tralians.
Her role includes over­sight of statewide gov­er­nance frame­works to pro­mote time­ly adop­tion of evi­denced-based inno­va­tions and equi­ty of access to high-cost health tech­nolo­gies shown to be safe, effec­tive and cost-effec­tive. This is under­pinned by foun­da­tion­al pri­or­i­ties for sus­tain­able and data dri­ven-sys­tems, ensur­ing qual­i­ty of care and patient safe­ty across care set­tings; evi­denced based deci­sion mak­ing and shared care; out­come assess­ment and patient report­ed out­comes; and work­force inno­va­tion and new mod­els of care.

In recent times, Naomi’s work has focused on devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing sys­temwide strate­gies to sup­port sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the health sys­tem through strate­gies such as expand­ing the scope of prac­tice for com­mu­ni­ty phar­ma­cists, includ­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the Com­mu­ni­ty Phar­ma­cy UTI Treat­ment Ser­vices ini­tia­tive and sup­port­ing the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of the Com­mu­ni­ty Phar­ma­cy Expand­ed Scope of Prac­tice ini­tia­tive where phar­ma­cists with addi­tion­al train­ing offer con­sul­ta­tions to assess, man­age, and treat a range of con­di­tions. These ser­vices pro­vide con­sumers with addi­tion­al health­care access and options and sup­port reduc­ing pres­sure on the health sys­tem includ­ing emer­gency depart­ments and pri­ma­ry care.

Reg­is­ter for the event.

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Episode 53: NAL­HN work­force sus­tain­abil­i­ty: a per­son-cen­tred approach

Date: 27 Novem­ber 2025

Time: 1.00 pm — 2.00 pm (ACST

In this episode, we will hear how the North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Net­work is tack­ling work­force chal­lenges through a per­son-cen­tred approach, engag­ing staff, school leavers and com­mu­ni­ty. Learn about NALHN’s inno­v­a­tive strate­gies that are reshap­ing recruit­ment and reten­tion for a sus­tain­able health workforce.

Speak­er Bios:

Adjunct Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Louise McGuire (Direc­tor of Nursing/​Midwifery Pro­fes­sion­al Prac­tice, North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network)

Louise McGuire is an expe­ri­enced nurs­ing leader cur­rent­ly serv­ing as the Direc­tor of Nursing/​Midwifery Pro­fes­sion­al Prac­tice at NAL­HN. With over 30 years in clin­i­cal and senior lead­er­ship roles, Louise spe­cialis­es in work­force devel­op­ment, with a pas­sion for per­son-cen­tred prac­tice, and nurs­ing and mid­wifery research. She has a strong track record of lead­ing large teams, imple­ment­ing inno­v­a­tive mod­els of care, and dri­ving recruit­ment and reten­tion strate­gies across com­plex health ser­vices. Louise holds a Mas­ter of Clin­i­cal Sci­ence (Research) and is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing an MBA, under­scor­ing her com­mit­ment to com­bin­ing clin­i­cal excel­lence with strate­gic leadership.

Vic­ki Nagy, Tal­ent Acqui­si­tion Spe­cial­ist, North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network

Vic­ki Nagy is the Tal­ent Acqui­si­tion Spe­cial­ist with the North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Net­work. She has worked in health for over 40 years, includ­ing 30 years in Peo­ple and Cul­ture across roles like Senior HR Con­sul­tant and in senior Project roles. Vic­ki is pas­sion­ate about cre­at­ing pos­i­tive work­place expe­ri­ences where staff feel val­ued and sup­port­ed and focus­es on help­ing peo­ple thrive through­out their work jour­ney and pro­mot­ing NAL­HN as an employ­er of choice.

Reg­is­ter for the event.

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Episode 54: The strength of an inter­gen­er­a­tional workforce

Date: 4 Decem­ber 2025

Time: 1.00 pm — 2.00 pm (ACST)

Under­stand­ing and har­ness­ing the strengths, val­ues, and moti­va­tions of younger gen­er­a­tions with­in the health work­force is vital to shap­ing an adapt­able, future-ready health sys­tem. Explore and dis­cuss prac­ti­cal strate­gies to build inclu­sive envi­ron­ments that embrace gen­er­a­tional diver­si­ty, sup­port var­ied ways of work­ing, and empow­er all staff to con­tribute their unique per­spec­tives and skills.

Speak­er Bios:

Joscelin Pow­ell (Direc­tor Oper­a­tions Improve­ment, Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Network)

Joscelin is a respect­ed health­care leader with more than twelve years of expe­ri­ence dri­ving strate­gic, oper­a­tional, and sys­tem-wide improve­ments across com­plex health ser­vices. In mid-2025, she com­menced her role as Direc­tor, Oper­a­tions Improve­ment at the Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work (CAL­HN), lead­ing ini­tia­tives focused on ser­vice trans­for­ma­tion, sys­tem opti­mi­sa­tion, and per­for­mance excel­lence.

Her career spans clin­i­cal and lead­er­ship roles across health strat­e­gy, ser­vice plan­ning, rede­vel­op­ment and com­mis­sion­ing, rur­al and remote health, and dig­i­tal inno­va­tion — with­in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. Known for her trans­for­ma­tion­al, action-ori­ent­ed lead­er­ship style, Joscelin excels at nav­i­gat­ing ambi­gu­i­ty, engag­ing stake­hold­ers, and trans­lat­ing strate­gic vision into sus­tain­able out­comes. Guid­ed by strong val­ues and a rela­tion­ship-cen­tred approach, she fos­ters pos­i­tive, empow­ered, and high-per­form­ing teams.

As the pre­vi­ous Chair and con­tin­u­ing active mem­ber of the SA Health Young Pro­fes­sion­als Group, Joscelin led the deliv­ery of statewide con­fer­ences, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment work­shops, and the launch of the 2025 – 2030 Strate­gic Direc­tions, ampli­fy­ing ear­ly-career voic­es and shap­ing the future work­force.
Joscelin holds a Mas­ter of Health Admin­is­tra­tion and a Bach­e­lor of Podi­a­try and is a Cer­ti­fied Health Infor­mati­cian Aus­trala­sia (CHIA) and a PRINCE2 Prac­ti­tion­er. She is recog­nised for her integri­ty, strate­gic fore­sight, and unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to advanc­ing com­pas­sion­ate, future-ready healthcare.

Reg­is­ter for the event.

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Please note: This event will be record­ed and pub­lished, how­ev­er we will ensure none of the attendee details will be revealed.

Watch past Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­cas­es here.