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 was 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 explored how teams are redesign­ing work, reshap­ing mod­els of care, using inno­v­a­tive recruit­ment tech­niques, and are engag­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of health­care pro­fes­sion­als, all in aid of build­ing a more sus­tain­able health­care work­force for South Australia.

Episode 51: Enabling sus­tain­able work­place well­be­ing through work redesign

Jodie Bow­man (Prin­ci­pal Project Offi­cer, Work­place Well­be­ing Part­ner­ships, CEIH)
Kier­an Hig­gins (Prin­ci­pal Learn­ing & Organ­i­sa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Con­sul­tant, Women’s and Children’s Health Network)

The ses­sion focused on the CEIH’s frame­work for cre­at­ing sus­tain­able work­place well­be­ing and empha­sised how redesign­ing work can be trans­for­ma­tive in pre­vent­ing burnout with­in health­care. Jodie and Kier­an shared insights from an applied research project deliv­ered through a part­ner­ship between the CEIH and the Women’s and Children’s Health Net­work.

This project showed how the frame­work works in real life by co-design­ing solu­tions with clin­i­cians and con­duct­ing research to test a pre­dic­tive tool for assess­ing burnout risk. The ini­tia­tive high­lights the val­ue of evi­dence-based strate­gies and col­lab­o­ra­tive design can sup­port long-term well­be­ing in health­care settings.

Episode 52: Build­ing a sus­tain­able health sys­tem through expand­ed practice

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

Nao­mi dis­cussed a recent ini­tia­tive with­in the South Aus­tralian health sys­tem that’s explor­ing rethink­ing how and where care is deliv­ered to the com­mu­ni­ty. This episode show­cased a con­tem­po­rary approach to expand­ing the scope of prac­tice as a strat­e­gy to reduce pres­sure on acute care set­tings. A key exam­ple pro­vid­ed was the imple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions from the South Aus­tralian Select Com­mit­tee on Access to Uri­nary Tract Infec­tion (UTI) Treat­ment.

Episode 53: NAL­HN work­force sus­tain­abil­i­ty: a Per­son-Cen­tred approach

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

North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Net­work (NAL­HN) is address­ing work­force chal­lenges through a per­son-cen­tred approach that active­ly engages staff, school leavers, and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty. Louise and Vic­ki high­light­ed NALHN’s inno­v­a­tive strate­gies designed to reshape recruit­ment and reten­tion prac­tices, ensur­ing a sus­tain­able health work­force for the future.

Episode 54: The strength of an inter­gen­er­a­tional workforce

Joscelin Pow­ell (Direc­tor Oper­a­tions Improve­ment, Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work)
Sarah Hardy (Man­ag­er Organ­i­sa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, South­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network)

This ses­sion explored strate­gies for build­ing a sus­tain­able health­care work­force, focus­ing on the val­ue of inter­gen­er­a­tional col­lab­o­ra­tion and diverse per­spec­tives. Jocelin and Sarah shared prac­ti­cal insights from the SA Health Young Pro­fes­sion­als Group, high­light­ing men­tor­ing, inclu­sive lead­er­ship, and evi­dence-based approach­es to work­force devel­op­ment. Key take­aways includ­ed the impor­tance of empa­thy, reverse men­tor­ing, con­struc­tive feed­back, and lever­ag­ing gen­er­a­tional strengths to fos­ter inno­va­tion and reten­tion in healthcare.