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23 - 24 February 2026, Grand Millennium, Auckland

Quality, safety & productivity in healthcare

Improving healthcare without compromise

In a resource constrained world, healthcare systems, and the professionals that work within them are constantly striving to improve their productivity and efficiency. However, it is essential that this is not achieved by compromising the quality and safety of the healthcare they provide.

This important new conference investigates the intersection of quality, safety, and productivity and provides practical guidance to healthcare teams into how we can achieve all three. By sharing global evidence from around the world, where health systems are all grappling with similar challenges.

And by disseminating the best existing practice from at home in New Zealand, this event will equip those attending with the tools and knowledge they need at a critical time.

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Key themes not to be missed

Strengthening Governance

See how strong frameworks and shared accountability lift safety and trust. Learn how clinical leaders manage risk and measure outcomes to improve care.

Advancing Quality, Safety and Equity

Explore practical ways to deliver fairer, safer care for all. Hear how Te Tiriti-led and culturally safe approaches drive real change.

Empowering and Protecting the Workforce

Put wellbeing at the centre of safety. Discover how teams are tackling burnout and supporting staff through change.

Technology for Better Care

Find out how AI, telehealth and data tools boost quality and productivity. Learn how smart tech reduces admin and frees time for patients.

Continuous Learning and Partnership

See how collaboration with whānau drive innovation. Explore systems that make quality improvement part of everyday care.

KEY SPEAKERS FOR 2026

Our 2026 key lineup brings together influential leaders, clinicians, and innovators driving change in the healthcare system. 
Check out more today.

Peter Pronovost, MD

Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer

University Hospitals (USA)

Dr Jonathan Christiansen

Chair

New Zealand Clinical Senate

Morag McDowell

Commissioner

Health and Disability Commission

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We are currently working on the programme and agenda
If you would like to have input into our research programme please email xxxx@brightstar.co.nz 

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Venue

The location and how you can get there

Address

Grand Millennium, Auckland
71 Mayoral Drive, Cnr Vincent Street,
Auckland 1010

Agenda

8:30

Registration and Coffee

8:50

Mihi whakatau

9:00

Welcoming remarks from Conference Chair

Dr Erica Whineray Kelly, Chief Medical Officer

9:10

Institute for Healthcare Improvement keynote address - Global insights for local impact: Closing the gaps and improving what matters

Lisa McKenzie, Vice President- Asia Pacific, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

9:50

Driving improvements healthcare quality and safety and the consumer & whanau experience of care by changing culture, embedding clinical governance and developing a learning system

  • How can organisations develop clinical governance systems which drive improvements in the quality and safety of care?

  • Examining the four domains of quality which define the activities required to achieve quality, safety and equity of health and care services:Consumers and whānau are active partners, engaged, effective and culturally safe health workforce, clinically effective health care, System safety and learning

  • Understanding the key system drivers which can support delivery of quality and safety: Delivering collaborative and coordinated care, ensuring inclusive leadership, monitoring and evaluation, the use of effective use of health technologies and data

  • How can clinical teams work in partnership with managers to assess and monitor clinical risk, identify gaps, deliver improvement, ensure accountability and shape a culture of quality and safety?

  • Taking a patient pathway and system view to address the fundamental drivers of productivity and efficiency

  • Releasing time to care – how can we support clinical teams to improve productivity and quality through reducing administrative burdens

Dr Sarah Jackson, National Chief, Quality and Patient Safety, Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora

10:30

Morning refreshments

11:00

The New Zealand Clinical Senate - Ensuring that the voices of those delivering care are central to decision-making

  • Sharing the vision and purpose of the NZ Clinical Senate

  • Delivering strategic advice on system-wide, cross discipline issues that impact the quality and efficiency of patient care

  • Exploring how the NZ Clinical Senate will champion quality and safety issues to improve patient care and outcomes

  • Unlocking our clinical potential: Identifying and addressing barriers to efficient delivery of quality healthcare – presenting the findings from the first meeting of the NZ Clinical Senate

  • Exploring the system level enablers and transformative shifts that have the potential to support long term changes in health service efficiency and productivity

  • How can we best support the health workforce to do the right things, for the right patients, at the right times, and in the right settings

Associate Professor Jonathan Christiansen, Chair, New Zealand Clinical Senate

11:40

Using Human Factors approaches to improve the quality and safety of healthcare

  • Examining the theory, principles and methods that underpin the scientific discipline of Human Factors which aims to optimise our understanding of the way people interact with the systems within which they work

  • Using Human Factors approaches to design improvements that optimise both human wellbeing and system performance

  • Recognising that the people and teams we work with are our key resources in ensuring quality and patient safety – how can we design our systems to make it easier for them?

  • Embedding Human Factors approaches in a range of clinical care environments

Dr Fiona Trevelyan, National Lead – Moving and Handling, Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora

12:20

Panel discussion: Answering tough questions about our ability to improve the quality of care and the safety of patients

  • Has the quality and patient safety movement failed to deliver anticipated improvements in system quality and safety?

  • How much of an impact are restricted resources having on quality and safety systems within healthcare currently?

  • Do we have the system capability to deliver improvement, innovation and transformation?

  • Do we have the capacity to support the delivery of the system level transformative shifts from treatment to prevention and from acute to community that have the potential to achieve long term financial sustainability?

  • Do quality and safety teams have the capacity to support services to improve or are all efforts deployed in maintaining delivery of key clinical governance assurance and compliance exercises?

  • Have we limited our ability to truly learn from incidents, near misses and complaints?

  • Tackling the challenging issue of safe staffing – are we putting patients and clinical staff at risk with current practice – what are the solutions?

Martyn Wormald, Clinical Quality & Risk Manager, Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau

Grassy Zhao, National Quality & Risk Advisor, Southern Cross Healthcare

Jacky Bush, Group Manager Quality, Safety and Clinical Risk, Allevia Health

Ann Whitfield, Associate Nurse Director Infection Prevention & Occupational Health, Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai Auckland

1:00

Lunch

2:00

Improving the efficiency and productivity of care

  • Understanding productivity and the need to utilise scarce resources as efficiently as possible as a key domain of health quality

  • Identifying the best ways to work differently, harness emerging technologies and unleash innovation to lift system productivity

  • Technology driven productivity – exploring the tools available to improve efficiency

  • Releasing time to care – exploring the use of AI tools to reduce administrative burdens

  • Technology driven productivity – exploring the tools available to improve efficiency and reduce administrative burdens

  • Analysing the findings of pilots of AI scribe tools in emergency departments

  • In what other settings and healthcare contexts are AI tools currently being used and what further opportunities exist?

Florian Stroehle, Co-Founder & CEO, Hendrix Health

2:40

Understanding healthcare workforce wellbeing improvement as a quality and safety intervention

  • Recognising staff wellbeing as a proxy and prerequisite for patient safety and high-quality patient care

  • Examining the relationship between wellbeing and productivity

  • Exploring the psychosocial risks that healthcare staff are routinely exposed to, including burnout, bullying and harassment, workplace violence and aggression

  • Identifying controls and measures that can be put in place to prevent and manage psychosocial risks in modern healthcare

  • Exploring the concept of moral hazard and moral injury in healthcare

  • Maintaining the psychological safety of healthcare teams – why protecting staff ability to feel that they can speak freely and challenge poor care is critical to safety

  • Putting in place effective post traumatic incident support for staff to ensure their wellbeing

Dr Jo Sinclair, Chief Wellbeing Officer | Consultant Anaesthetist, Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora

3:20

Afternoon break

3:40

Implementing and operationalising clinical governance and quality in practice

  • Exploring the history and key challenges to successfully implementing clinical governance in practice

  • Reframing clinical governance to support staff engagement and successful implementation

  • Customising clinical governance and quality for an Aotearoa NZ context using the SWEET (Safe, Whānau-centred, Effective, Equitable, Te Tiriti- and Tikanga-based) framework

  • Practical tips and illustrative examples to support implementation and operationalisation in practice – making care SWEETer

Dr Jerome Ng, Clinical Director - Clinical Governance, Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau

4:25

Leveraging technology to improve quality, safety and productivity

  • Developing frameworks for harnessing innovation and new technology to drive improvements in quality and productivity

  • Ensuring that our quality and safety systems and improvement capabilities keep pace with rapid advancements in technology

  • Maximising the use of AI for both productivity and quality improvement - how can it be harnessed in a way that frees people up for the high value work?

  • Undertaking a risk analysis of the use of AI in the health sector

  • Creating quality standards for the use of telehealth and remote consultations

  • Working to ensure that we make insight and data the backbone for safety and quality

  • Exploring a range of patient safety technology solutions

  • Understanding cyber security as a clinical safety issue

Dr Graham Denyer, Chief Medical Officer, Tend Healthcare

5:00

Summary remarks from the Chair & Networking Drinks

9:00

Welcome back from Conference Chair

Dr Erica Whineray Kelly, Chief Medical Officer

9:05

Health and Disability Commissioner Address: Lessons for the system from the work of the HDC

  • Reflecting on HDC cases over the last 12 months and identifying current challenges for healthcare practitioners and the public

  • Analysing trends in the complaints received by the HDC – what do these tell us about the key quality and safety issues within New Zealand healthcare

  • Identifying lessons for the system in the way they manage quality and safety and in the way they respond to incidents and complaints

  • What lessons can we learn from the way other health systems manage and support general practice ownership and delivery?

Morag McDowell, Commissioner, Health and Disability Commission

9.50

Living and leading with love – exploring the intersection of healthcare and humanity

In the face of unprecedented challenges—rising costs, workforce burnout, and declining trust—healthcare organisations must rethink how they lead change. Dr. Peter Pronovost presents a bold, evidence-based framework for transformation rooted not in technology or policy, but in love. Drawing from his experience leading system-wide change Dr. Pronovost introduces a scalable operating model—Believe, Belong, Build—that integrates purpose-driven leadership, inclusive culture, and disciplined management systems. This session will explore how love, defined as the energy that uplifts and connects people, can dissolve fear, foster trust, and accelerate innovation. Attendees will learn how to operationalise this model to drive measurable improvements in clinical outcomes, workforce engagement, and financial performance. Through real-world examples and practical tools, participants will leave empowered to lead with compassion, accountability, and courage—transforming their organizations from the inside out. This session will enable participants to:

  • Apply the “Believe, Belong, Build” framework to redesign care delivery and operating models that foster collective problem-solving and continuous improvement

  • Implement leadership strategies that cultivate psychological safety, trust, and belonging—enabling frontline teams to contribute meaningfully to transformation efforts

  • Measure and scale cultural change using the 5 R’s (rituals, rhetoric, rewards, recognition, and role-modelling) to create a flywheel for performance and sustainable innovation

Peter Pronovost, MD, Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer, University Hospitals (USA) & President, UH Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute

10:30

Morning refreshments

11:00

Humanising harm: Restorative responses to conflict, complaints and adverse events

  • Exploring how adversarial principles and practices compound harm in complex health systems

  • Explaining the key principles underpinning restorative responses and the benefits and risks involved with employing a relational framework

  • Appreciating the dynamic staff, patient and whānau experience - shaping system safety through stories and relational leadership

  • Ensuring that responses, and the subsequent evaluations, consider what works (or not) for different stakeholder groups

Dr Jo Wailling, Founder, Restorative Responses

11:40

Working in partnership with consumers, whānau and communities to deliver safe, skilled and compassionate consumer and whānau-centred care

  • Recognising the importance of active engagement with communities, patients consumers and whānau - ensuring that we are providing them with greater control over the design of health the services they rely on

  • How can we best ensure the involvement of consumers at all levels of clinical governance and quality improvement systems within the system to make sure that services are meeting their needs?

  • Understanding how effective clinical governance and quality and safety systems can act as enablers allowing health services to be more responsive to the needs of the communities they serve

  • Analysing the code of expectations for health entities’ engagement with consumers and whānau and the expectations it sets for how health entities must work with consumers, whānau and communities in the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of health services

  • Sharing examples of effective co-design in action demonstrating the active support of Māori and other key consumer groups in the co-production and co-design of health care

Angela Smith, Co-Chair, National Quality Forum, Co-Chair, Te Kāhui Mahi Ngātahi I Consumer Advisory Group & Co-Chair, Te Whatu Ora Te Ikaroa I Central Regional Consumer Council

12:20

Practical risk governance for quality and safety

  • Developing and deploying practical risk management to support quality and safety

  • Understanding healthcare as a complex, adaptive environment where risk is inherent, and why clear, usable risk controls matter in day-to-day decision-making

  • Designing practical mechanisms to identify, monitor and respond to risk at operational, clinical and governance levels

  • Establishing clear and workable risk escalation pathways that support timely action and accountability

  • Connecting enterprise risk and clinical risk so information flows meaningfully between frontline teams, executives and boards

  • Recognising and responding to emerging clinical risks early, before harm occurs, using real-world indicators rather than retrospective assurance alone

Victoria Aliprantis, Director, Vic Consulting

1:00

Lunch

2:00

Patient Safety & Clinical Risk Updates

In this series crucial clinical updates, experts will examine a range of key clinical risk areas allowing attendees to keep up to date. They will present the latest guidance and standards available that identify clinical best practice as well as delivering an analysis of effective evidence-based patient safety interventions, proven quality improvement initiatives and technology solutions that can make a difference. Covering the following areas:

  • Infection prevention and control
    Carolyn Clissold, National Infection, Prevention and Control Lead- Nursing, Health NZ Te Whatu Ora

  • Medicines safety
    Dr Jerome Ng, Clinical Director - Clinical Governance, Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau

3.20

Afternoon refreshments

3.40

Patient Safety & Clinical Risk Updates (continued)

  • Patient deterioration and sepsis
    Dr Alex Psirides, Co-Director & Intensive Care Specialist, Wellington ICU & Chair, National Critical Care Advisory Group, Te Whatu Ora | Health NZ

  • Primary care
    Louise Kennedy, Kaiarāhi | Service Manager - Clinical Quality & Education, Pegasus Health

5:00

Summary remarks from the Chair & end of Conference

Speakers

Speakers to be announced

Florian Stroehle

Founder and CEO
Hendrix Health
With over 15 years in digital healthcare, Florian has led business transformation, AI implementation, and digital strategy for healthcare providers across multiple regions. Prior to Hendrix Health, he held executive roles in healthcare technology firms, where he spearheaded large-scale system modernisation, cybersecurity response, and AI-driven patient administration models.  Florian has a deep understanding of healthcare systems, digital transformation, and governance models across New Zealand, the UK, US, Australia, Asia and the Middle East. His leadership in strategy and business development has shaped major healthcare projects, ensuring seamless digital integration in both public and private sectors.   His experience includes implementing clinical systems, PAS(s), ITSM, ERP, CRM, scheduling, booking, eReferrals, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and virtual hospital solutions. His expertise ensures AI tools are integrated seamlessly, driving efficiency while keeping healthcare human-centered. 

Ann Whitfield

Associate Nurse Director Infection Prevention & Occupational Health
Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai Auckland
Ann Whitfield is the Associate Nurse Director Infection Prevention & Occupational Health in Auckland and is credentialled as an expert with the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control. Ann has been a registered nurse for 26 years and has a diverse nursing background which includes positions in the British Territorial Army Medical core, a Nursing Officer Merchant Navy (Cruise ships) and has worked both in small and tertiary hospitals. She has spent many years as a senior infection prevention and control (IPC) expert and worked for the Communicable Disease Control Directorate in Australia and New Zealand. 

Dr Fiona Trevelyan

National Lead – Moving and Handling
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora
Dr Fiona Trevelyan is the National Lead – Moving and Handling at Health NZ where she leads the implementation of a systems approach to reduce worker and patient exposure to risk associated with patient and object handling tasks. Fiona has extensive experience in the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders in healthcare and established and led the interprofessional undergraduate programme for moving and handling at AUT before coming to Health NZ. Fiona is a Certified Member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of NZ, leads the Healthcare Special Interest Group and is on the HASANZ professional register.

Dr Erica Whineray Kelly

Chief Medical Officer

Victoria Aliprantis

Director
Vic Consulting
Victoria Aliprantis is a healthcare governance, quality and risk professional with over 30 years’ experience across public and private health and disability services in Aotearoa New Zealand. A registered nurse by background, she has held senior executive roles leading national quality, risk and clinical governance functions, and has served as a director of private surgical facilities. Victoria is the founder of VIC Consulting, where she works with small to medium healthcare organisations to strengthen practical governance, risk and quality systems, support audit and certification readiness, and improve how risk information is used in decision-making. Her work focuses on simplifying complex frameworks, strengthening escalation and accountability, and supporting organisations to move beyond compliance toward meaningful improvement for consumers, whānau and staff.

Carolyn Clissold

National Infection, Prevention and Control Lead- Nursing
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora

Louise Kennedy

Kaiarāhi | Service Manager - Clinical Quality & Education
Pegasus Health

Jacky Bush

Group Manager Quality, Safety and Clinical Risk
Allevia Health

Grassy Zhao

National Quality & Risk Advisor
Southern Cross Healthcare

Martyn Wormald

Clinical Quality & Risk Manager - Surgery, Anaesthesia & Perioperative Services
Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau

Dr Alex Psirides

Co-Director & Intensive Care Specialist, Wellington ICU &
Chair, National Critical Care Advisory Group, Te Whatu Ora | Health NZ

Dr Sarah Jackson

National Chief, Quality and Patient Safety
Te Whatu Ora | Health NZ
Dr Sarah Jackson has more than 30 years’ experience working to improve quality and safety of care for patients and their whānau. A qualified anaesthetist specialising in neuroanaesthesia, Sarah’s most recent role was Interim Chief Medical Officer at Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley. Sarah has led changes to models of care, and has established clinical governance boards at the district and regional level. She is chair of the Central Region Clinical Board, and anesthetic representative on the Cancer Services Planning – Surgical Services team, a group set up by Te Aho o Te Kahu, Cancer Control Agency, to look at how best to deliver surgical services to cancer patients in Aotearoa. Her previous research includes contributing to a study on ethnic disparities in postoperative mortality, with a specific focus on outcomes for Māori and non-Māori. Sarah is responsible for providing professional leadership for all quality and patient safety, working in collaboration with other clinical leads at national, regional and local levels.

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