Ausmed’s New Healthcare Conference for Educators and L&D Practitioners

Adam Ferrier is a multi-award winning advertising creative and founder of the agency Thinkerbell. He is also a leading Australian consumer psychologist, an expert brand strategist and an authority on Behavioural Economics. Adam is the author of The Advertising Effect and part of The Australian Creatives’ Power 20; a regular on the Gruen series and has featured on The Project, Celebrity Apprentice and ABC Radio. A dynamic, insightful keynote speaker, he hands delegates the keys to sky rocketed motivation – whether to buy, perform or change – through cognitive behavioural psychology and a deep understanding of behavioural economics.

Amy is a healthcare leader passionate to see patients, clinicians and technology come together to drive change in how healthcare is delivered across the world. She has extensive local and international experience in healthcare innovation and improvement, with experience managing successful large-scale organisational change programs.

As Chief Digital Health Officer, at Alfred Health Amy is responsible for leading Alfred Health's Digital Health strategy and supporting excellence in care across the organisation. Over the past 5 years her role has included fighting off the “bad guys and girls” in the cyber world (the cape is always in the cupboard).

Carla Beheram is the COO for Anchor Excellence, a role she has held for 5 years. She is a proud Registered Nurse with business and management qualifications, She is a Certified Aged care Chair and holds credentials in Clinical Governance from the Institute of Clinical Governance.

With over 20 years of senior management experience and an experienced advisor Carla has directly assisted over 20 services with serious non-compliance fulfilling the functions as Statutory Care & Services Advisor. She leads the AnchorAssure program and is a regular presenter via the Anchor Academy. She crafted the unique Online New Graduate Program and the clinical management and governance program. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing and a Grad Certificate in Strategic Business. Carla’s real passion is supporting aged care organisations and teams to innovate and deliver change and sees the creation of advisory bodies in aged care as a real opportunity to drive further improvement.

Celeste is a registered midwife who has worked in the profession for ten years across many areas of midwifery including birthing, postnatal, antenatal and fertility. Celeste still works clinically as a midwife and also works for the national Nursing and Midwifery Program of Victoria as a senior clinician. She is passionate about providing support to nurses and midwives in need. Celeste has a strong interest in health specifically relating to sleep, nutrition, exercise and stress. Celeste sings in a women’s community choir and loves weight lifting, being out in nature, dancing and Japanese food.

Chemène is the founder and Principal at Blackwater Projects, an independent practice that helps individuals and organisations design and implement learning experiences that improve performance.

Chemène uses her diverse background in learning and performance background to inform her work. An Olympian, she has coached elite athletes and mentored coaches. She has taught kindergarten, year 12, and a few years in between. And since launching Blackwater Projects in 2000, she has worked with corporate, community and government clients throughout Australia and internationally.

In VET, Chemène specialises in TAE. She has written TAE materials that more than 150 organisations have used since they were first introduced in 2010 and is excited about her latest project, partnering with Pop Education to design and develop online TAE40112 resources.

Chemène runs professional development events for new and experienced educators who want to go ‘beyond the basics’ and is a regular speaker at conferences and special events.

Gaby Bruning is an Aboriginal woman who lives and works on Wurundjeri land.

Gaby has worked in the Alcohol and Other Drug sector for 10 years in settings such as residential detox, Aboriginal Health, community outreach. Gaby has previously worked for VACCHO, and apart of a team that successfully established a sobering up service within City of Yarra.

In April 2023, Gaby was awarded the National Rolleston Award at the Harm Reduction International conference.

Gaby has worked in the Medically Supervised Injecting Room as a Senior Harm Reduction Practitioner since 2018. Gaby also works for Eastern Health as the First Nations Cultural Safety Project Lead.

Geoffrey Ahern is a senior mental health clinician and educator who splits his time between working with people in a mental health crisis in the ED setting and working proactively to educate other health professionals and the community about how to better understand mental health problems, as well as substance use and addiction. Over the years, he has gained extensive experience in emergency and trauma, rural nursing, alcohol and other drug counselling, and psychiatric nursing across both the public and private sectors. He holds a masters of health science (mental health and addiction). Geoff is particularly fascinated by the impact that exercise, nutrition, community, meaning and purpose, and practices like yoga have on a person’s mental health, as well as living a simple life of reflection, contentment and wonderment.

Jan Rice is a Registered Nurse with many years of experience in surgical nursing. Jan is a member of the Venous Leg Ulcer Guideline Implementation sub-committee and the Pressure Injury Guidelines Development sub-committee. Jan obtained a Masters in Wound Care in 2009 and runs a wound clinic in a large Metropolitan General Practice — Ashwood Medical. Through her own business, Jan has been acting as a consultant to over 80 aged care facilities and a resource for Divisions of General Practice and surgeons within Victoria. Jan is an author of a book chapter on wound healing and has been a volunteer with Interplast since 1983. In 2006, she was awarded Fellowship to the Australian Wound Management Association.

Dr Jenny Gowan is a practicing pharmacist, adjunct senior lecturer at Monash University and clinical associate at RMIT University. She has published over 500 educational articles, has extensive experience in giving presentations and lectures and runs a consulting pharmacy company. Jenny was awarded the 2013 PSA Australian Pharmacist of the Year award and the 2016 AACP-MIMs Consultant Pharmacist of the Year Award.

Dr Linda Starr (PhD) is an associate professor in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. She also has extensive experience as a registered nurse and is the South Australian practitioner member on the National Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. Linda is passionate about the intersection between healthcare and the law, with a particular focus on the mandatory reporting of elder abuse.

Loren is the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s Senior Practitioner, Behaviour Support and commenced with the Commission in May 2023. Loren is a Nurse Practitioner (Older Person) and brings with her years of experience and clinical expertise in supporting the older person particularly people living with dementia and individuals experiencing changed behaviours. Loren brings specialist knowledge and skills in the clinical care of older people which comes from a combination of formal education, research and clinical experience. Loren has spent her career working in aged care in both acute and residential care in a variety of roles across a range of settings including rural health. Loren has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate students in Dementia care and has also completed research in the area of Environmental Design and Physical Activity. Loren is passionate about the care of the Older Person and is seen as a clinical leader.

As an industry leader and co-author of the current Rainbow Tick guides, over the past decade Matthew Parsons (they/them) has helped hundreds of organisations provide a safer and more inclusive environment for LGBTIQA+ staff and clients. With developed expertise in organisational capacity building and a passion for best practice in adult education, Matthew seeks to empower staff at every level of an organisation not only with the necessary knowledge and skills, but also with enabling systems and CQI frameworks to ensure their organisation is a place where people of all bodies, genders and sexualities can get the support they need and know that they belong.

Michelle Hogan is a Registered Nurse and Credentialled Diabetes Educator and has extensive experience across both residential and home aged care services in clinical care, clinical management, education, quality, governance and research. Michelle is the Director of the Clinical Unit at the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission and holds an Associate Degree in Dementia Care, the University of SA’s Certificate in Practice Education and has completed her Master of Nursing - Diabetes Education and Management in 2022 and was awarded the James and Jessie Brown Memorial Prizes in Aged Care and Gerontology.

Michelle is a casual academic for Flinders University’s postgraduate Primary Health Care and Diabetes streams and an previously an Associate Lecturer at the University of SA. Michelle sits on a number of advisory committees and is a practitioner member of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of South Australia. She has published and co-authored extensively in relation to the care of an older person, including diabetes, skin assessment, continence, quality use of medicines in aged care, oral health care and the lived experience of older people living with dementia.

Michelle Robins is a credentialled diabetes educator and a nurse practitioner with Northern Health. She has worked for 30 years as a diabetes educator at several major tertiary hospitals in Victoria and Queensland. Michelle has served on more than 50 diabetes-related committees and contributed to book chapters on diabetes.

Michelle Wicky is the Chief Customer Officer at Ausmed Education. In this role, she oversees the support of the entire enterprise customer base. Prior to this, Michelle had a long tenure as General Manager, Learning and Development at St Basil’s Aged Care Homes NSW/ACT. Her formative years were spent in the nursing sector with a focus on clinical education before moving into workforce capability and development.

Michelle has held senior roles in workforce capability including upskilling clinical staff in both the for profit and for purpose sectors. She has a variety of skills in leadership development, strategic planning, capability building, education, facilitation and project management.

During her career Michelle has project managed the design, development and successful implementation of a capability framework project that scoped a 5000+ person workforce providing training need insights for strategic planning. She was also instrumental in the redesign of a national skills-based training program to meet the needs of a large and diverse clinical cohort.

Michelle is an experienced educator, presenter and facilitator with a knack for meeting both the needs and desires of her audience.

Sarah is the founder and Managing Director of Pop Education. Since 2005, she developed VET resources in the online and blended space. Sarah has developed assessments for over 300 unique units of competency and began her assessment career developing assessments for 12 months under the guidance of an ASQA auditor.

Sarah’s previous background in e-learning has allowed her to combine her skills to be a thought leader in the niche space of online assessment and has designed models for validating online assessments and assessment methodology. She is highly regarded in the sector for her management of large projects and her personable approach to client needs, and delivers high quality materials and training, leading her team by example. With a Bachelor of adult learning and development, coupled with a Diploma of e-learning and qualifications in Auditing, Visual Arts and Project Management, Sarah knows all facets of resource development.

Sean Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing at Torrens University. Sean is a former hospital CEO and DON and has worked in healthcare globally. As a Confirmed Candidate, Sean is working towards his PhD, researching clinical safety through digital transformation. Sean is passionate about strategy in healthcare, safety and quality in clinical practice and excellence in health management.

Tim is a corporate clinician with a purpose for populations to live their best lives through innovative digital health solutions.

Tim has been with Telstra Health for four years and currently carries responsibility for clinical governance and operations, ensuring clinical safety is paramount in the work we do for our digital health products and services across their full lifecycle in all Telstra Health businesses.

Tim joined Telstra Health as Medical Operations Director for the National Cancer Screening Register, leading operations across cervical and bowel cancer screening for three years. Prior to this he worked at Bupa Australia and New Zealand as Medical Services Director for Bupa Villages and Aged Care, Australia and New Zealand, and as a National Medical Director across all Bupa businesses. He has an MBA and CHIA certification.

Tim is also a non-executive Director of Local Guardians which provides digital support for aged home care packages.

Tim completed medicine at Monash University and holds the Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (FRACGP). His clinical career involved 20 years of general practice in urban and rural locations, and in the U.K. He has worked for the RACGP training program and in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne.

Representative work has included Primary Health Networks, AMA Victoria, AMA Federal, and RACGP Victoria Faculty, involving board work and specialist committees.

Simon is a Physiotherapist and the Founder of Guide Healthcare – awarded the 5th most innovative company in the health industry by the Australian Financial Review in 2021. Guide Healthcare provides quality and evidence-focused allied health services to the aged care, home care, and the disability sector. Simon has a particular passion for improving the lives of the elderly through advocacy, challenging societal views of ageing and finding creative solutions to systematic problems. Simon was recognised for his leadership in 2020, being awarded Aged Services Young Leader of the Year by Leading Aged Services Australia. Simon enjoys exploring the concepts of age-related disability, facilitating healthy-ageing programs, empowering older people, and challenging ageism. Outside of his work in the aged care sector, Simon is interested in corporate leadership, change management, building stronger teams, cultural change, employee experience and facilitating innovation within businesses.

Tony King is a registered nurse and intensive care nurse educator with Epworth Healthcare. He completed a research Masters by evaluating factors that influence quality end-of-life care. Tony is passionate about developing all healthcare professionals, recognising we all have knowledge and strengths that positively contribute to a patient's journey.

Will is CEO of Ausmed and has 15 years experience of working in digital health education. He leverages his background in software development across large scale global technology companies to help Ausmed drive large scale change in the role that learning and development plays in Australia’s healthcare system. Will’s passion is genuinely driving improvement in care through effective education.

Will Pamment is the COO and Co-Founder of SimConverse. SimConverse leverages its proprietary AI technology to deliver large-scale communication skills training across APAC, North America, the UK & Europe. The company was founded in 2020 during Will's MD-PhD which focused on augmenting the accessibility of communication skills training through improved pedagogy and education technology. Will's healthcare background and research career coupled with the AI expertise of his Co-Founder, Aiden, culminated in the formation of what is now the leading accessible communication skills training provider globally.

Zoe Youl is a Critical Care Registered Nurse with over 10 years of experience at Ausmed. As Head of Clinical Governance, she has built an understanding of regulations relevant to Australian health practitioners.

She is also responsible for maintaining and applying accreditation frameworks across software and education. She lead the Ausmed Education Learning Centre to achieve Accreditation with Distinction, for the third consecutive cycle, with the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) Commission on Accreditation. The AELC is the only Australian provider of nursing continuing professional development to be awarded this.