Bio
Prof. Dr. Richard Gray has been at La Trobe University since 2017, becoming the Theme Lead (Healthy People, Families, and Communities) in 2021. He originally trained and worked as a mental health nurse at the Maudsley Hospital in London before training in epidemiology and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Subsequently, he has worked as a mental health services researcher focused on improving physical health outcomes for people experiencing mental ill-health, initially at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and latterly at the University of East Anglia and La Trobe University. His major research interests include the use of administrative data to address questions about optimising the healthcare workforce, e.g., staffing ratios and education. Other research interests include behaviour change research and interventions for patients with multi-morbidity (two or more coexisting conditions, e.g., cardiovascular disease and depression).

Bio
Dr. Martin Jones held National Health Service (NHS) leadership roles in the United Kingdom (UK), serving diverse and under-served communities in inner-city London and its outer boroughs. He held National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) grants in the UK and collaborated successfully on research with academics from the UK, Australia, China, and the European Union. In two of his previous UK roles, he was responsible for a budget of £200M that delivered a safe, effective, and quality nursing service. Since arriving in regional Australia over a decade ago, he has had the privilege to be part of a University Department of Rural Health leadership team which has doubled our rural health student placement activity, augmented our interprofessional educational activity to support rural students, increased the number and quality of our research outputs in regional South Australia and designed new innovative educational models for the existing rural health workforce. In his work with patients/service users, families, and healthcare workers, he has undertaken randomized controlled trials, and systematic reviews, and tested formulated hypotheses. These programs of research have generated over $5M in research grant funding. Funding sources have been with partners from the European Union, Primary Health Networks, the Commonwealth, and local community partners located in rural and remote Australia. I have published over 100

Talk
Nursing Skill Mix: Relationship to Person-Centered Care and Patient Safety

Bio
Associate Professor Jacqui Pich is the Deputy Head of School Teaching and Learning for the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Jacqui has significant experience in the teaching and learning space – in curriculum development and was awarded a national citation for outstanding contributions to student learning in 2022. She also works closely with industry and was one of the chief investigators on a review on the training and education conducted in South Western Sydney Local health District in Sydney Australia. Her body of research is focused on violence in nursing and she is considered an expert in her field. She continues to work closely with professional nursing organisations on this topic and is especially interested in the link between violence to nurses and the impact on patient safety. In 2018 she was the chief investigator on a project conducted in collaboration with the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association on violence in nursing and midwifery. A total of 3,416 nurses and midwives participated in a survey on the topic, making it the largest study of its kind ever conducted in Australia and one of the largest worldwide.