COVID has created a significant strain in the nursing community, exacerbating challenges with burnout and in many instances, seeing nurses leave the profession entirely. An overall shortfall of 85,000 nurses by 2025 and 123,000 by 2030 is predicted across all sectors: acute, aged care, critical care, emergency and mental health. This panel discussion will dig deeper to reflect on the changing sector to outline the important steps required across health services, education providers, associations and the nurses themselves to create a thriving talent pool and workforce that can support the demands of the healthcare service of the future.

• What steps can we take to improve retention of nurses and address the skillset shortages faced by the industry?
• In what ways can workforce planning and strategy be improved to reduce strain on the nursing profession?
• How can we improve the attractiveness and appeal of the nursing career for future generations?
• How can we harness the power of graduates and fast-track the development of early career nurses?

Confirmed Panellists:

Marli Millas

General Manager Surgery & Critical Care
Sunshine Coast Hospital & Health Service

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Veronica Casey

Executive Director, Nursing & Midwifery
Metro South Health

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Michelle Gunn

Director of Nursing Workforce Sustainability
Queensland Health

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West Moreton is widely recognized across Australia as a leader around its philosophy, culture and approach towards virtual care. Leading innovation not only through telehealth but also through complex virtual remote monitoring platforms and solutions, the health service is on a journey to sustainably harness value from virtual models of care – and the best part of this, nurses have been at the heart of this innovation. In this talk, Shannon, who has spearheaded West Moreton’s virtual care agenda since 2016 will share with you:

• How West Moreton’s nurses champion and continue scaling its virtual care agenda since 2016
• Why its important to view virtual care as a service re-design project rather than a bolt on service
• Understanding the resourcing and cultural challenges with building sustainable virtual care applications
• Measuring health value for patients (satisfaction and care outcomes) and the health service (efficiencies) through rich data collection

Shannon Wallis

Nurse Unit Manager | MeCare Program
West Moreton Health

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From the days of Florence Nightingale to our modern era, nurses have been leaders of change by using data to inform their clinical practice and improve care outcomes for their patients. Kerri-Anne will explore how nurses in Queensland have pioneered services, including the journey of NPAQ to empower them to be change agents where ever they are.

Kerri-Anne Dooley

Director of Nursing
The Banyans Healthcare Group

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Kitty’s extensive work with Community Nursing has clarified her belief that looking through the lens of a nurse gives ability to see the whole patient and assess not only the clinical needs but also the social, environmental, and cultural elements that impact on health outcomes. With their ability to perceive those vulnerable to poor health outcomes, Nurses are an invaluable asset in the identification and optimisation of care coordination when addressing an individual’s needs. When nurses recognise how a holistic and wellness approach can align rather than be in opposition to our medically focused system, they are empowered to confidently take their place in the integrated health team.

Join Kitty as she explores:

• The value of incorporating social determinants of health in nursing assessments and care delivery.
• Challenging assumptions of the nurse’s role in health care.
• Creating opportunities for nurses to lead change in an evolving healthcare system.
• Resources to support career development pathways for nurses in future community care delivery.

Kitty Hutchison

Chair of Nursing in the Community ACN Faculty
Australian College of Nursing

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Clinical innovation and digital transformation within hospital environments ramped up through COVID and will only continue to do so. Nurses, as frontline, often adopting these innovations have an important role to play in ensuring their success. As more innovations and practice improvements roll into a health service, the importance of planning and evaluating their implementation through evidence-based approaches is critical to their success.

Without this, the ability to understand the feasibility and impact of innovations becomes challenging. 

Sonya will take us through:

• The importance of implementation science to nursing
• Examples of collaborations with nurses to introduce clinical innovations through the implementation science lens
• What opportunities exist for nurses to upskill and bring these skills to their workplace

Sonya Osborne

Associate Professor of Nursing
University of Southern Queensland

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As the health sector evolves through the waves of the pandemic and digital transformation coupled with skillset shortages on the frontline, the need for comprehensive, specialized skillsets in the sector is being felt and nurses have a huge opportunity to step up. While the sector reforms to create a more supportive environment for nurses, nurses themselves can take steps to support their own professional development and also improve the impact they make on their own practice, health service and patients. 

In this talk, Leyden De La Cruz, QEII Hospital’s newest certified Credentialed Gastroenterology Nurse, highlights how credentialing has helped her in her own endeavours to grow as a nurse and elevate the value she brings to models of care, patients and the hospital:

• Why nurses must explore the value of credentialling programs
• How credentialing helped her improve alignment with evidence-based practices and research to improve care quality
• How credentialing opened new opportunities from a career and professional development standpoint

Leyden De La Cruz

Clinical Nurse – Endoscopy/Surveillance
Queen Elizabeth II Hospital

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