The 4th International Conference on Safety Quality Audit and Outcomes will feature presentations from invited speakers. 

Dr John Wakefield
Executive Director Queensland Health
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Service

John is an international medical graduate from the United Kingdom and has worked in private and public roles in Queensland since 1989. With over 20 years experience in clinical and management roles in rural, regional and tertiary sector, John has a broad understanding of the challenges of delivering healthcare services in a large decentralised state.

In early 2002, he was part of a team that instituted a patient safety system at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and in 2004, completed a Fellowship under Dr Jim Bagian, at the National Centre for Patient Safety of the VA Health System in the United States.

On return to Queensland, he set up the Queensland Health Patient Safety Centre in 2005 with the aim of working with clinicians and managers to lead patient safety improvement across Queensland Health. The program of work includes a state-wide clinical incident management system, major safety improvement initiatives addressing high risk issues and development of a legislative framework fro Root Cause Analysis which was passed by the Queensland parliament in April 2007.

He chaired the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Health Care National Open Disclosure Pilot Steering committee and is actively involved in teaching Open Disclosure and other patient safety curricula. His research interests include clinician behaviour change and measurement of safety and quality.

Qualifications:
MB CHB MPH (Research) FRACGP FACRRM FRACMA Grad. Cert. Management

Prof Tracey Bucknall
Professor of Nursing, Deakin University
Head, Cabrini -Deakin Centre for Nursing Research, Cabrini Health

Prof Bucknall has held a variety of clinical, educational and research appointments in private and public hospitals, and in the tertiary sector. Her practice specialty was critical care for 13 years prior to concentrating on research. Her research focuses on understanding how individuals make decisions routinely and in uncertainty, identifying the environmental and social influences upon decisions.

She has successfully obtained research funding, nationally and internationally, to study individual, team and organisational interactions and decisions in healthcare. She has more than 80 publications with frequent national and international presentations on decision making in clinical practice. Prof Bucknall is also Associate Editor of Worldviews on Evidence Based Nursing, ranked one of the top nursing journals internationally.

Qualifications:
RN, ICU Cert, BN, Grad Dip Adv Nurs, PhD.

Prof Elizabeth Manias

Professor Elizabeth Manias is a registered pharmacist and nurse, and works in the Melbourne School of Health Sciences at The University of Melbourne. Her research endeavours encompass patient safety, medication management, medication adherence, interpersonal and organisational communication, and consumer participation. Specifically, her work considers different individuals’ perspectives and the complexities of the dynamic environment in which communication takes place.

Her research involves the use of diverse research designs, including randomised controlled trials, observational cohort studies, tool development and evaluation and qualitative studies. She has extensive experience and expertise in undertaking hospital and community-based research in diverse environments.

Prof Johanna Westbrook

Professor Westbrook is Director of the Health Informatics Research & Evaluation Unit at the University of Sydney. Her research expertise centres on the design and execution of complex multi-method evaluations of the effects of informatics interventions. She leads the largest health informatics evaluation research team in Australia and the team’s work is highly competitive with international teams. A unique aspect of their work is the application of sophisticated quantitative methods grounded in epidemiological techniques married with the use of qualitative approaches such as video observational studies.

Professor Westbrook has an extensive publication record which includes over 200 refereed publications. She has attracted in excess of $26M in research funding and won several awards for her research. She is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and the Australasian College of Health Informatics and is actively involved in the translation of research evidence into practice including participation in a range of policy and advisory groups.