The Chair of the Healthy Communities Foundation Australia Ltd, Richard Anicich AM, is pleased to announce the appointment of health innovator Dr Tracey Tay to the Board as a new Director.
Tracey is the Chief Medical Advisor at Calvary, one of Australia’s leading national not-for-profit health and aged care services organisation established in 1855. Tracey has over 35 years’ experience as a practicing clinician and senior clinical executive bringing extensive practical knowledge of the health system, experience in policy and strategy development, the development of innovative models of care, and in virtual care and clinical leadership.
They have held roles in clinical innovation and redesign since 2008, supporting clinicians and managers to redesign their services to improve care for their patients and clients. Alongside their clinical work as a specialist anaesthetist at the John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, Tracey was the Clinical Executive Director of the CATALYST Directorate at the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI).
The Directorate included a broad range of statewide clinical networks improving care for people across NSW including Paediatrics, Maternity and Neonatal, Violence, Abuse and Neglect, Aged Health, End of Life and Palliative Care, Virtual Care, Aboriginal Chronic Care, Mental Health and Emergency Care. In that role, they held executive responsibility for the NSW Health Chronic Wound Taskforce and Frailty Taskforce.
Dr Tay was co-Chair of the NSW Health Virtual Care Accelerator which focussed on the identification, rapid upscale and spread of virtual care initiatives during COVID. She was Medical Advisor to COVID Care@Home which provided virtual care to COVID positive patients in NSW, WA, Qld and Victoria.
Tracey is is currently: Chair, Calvary National Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce, Member, Calvary National Clinical Governance Committee, Member, Clinical Governance Committee Calvary Amplar Joint Venture My Home Hospital, Member, National Advisory Group, End-of-Life Essentials, Flinders University, Member, Expert Advisory Group, NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, End of Life and Palliative Care, Member, Calvary National Research Governance Committee, and a Board Director, Australasian Association of Private Medical Executives.
In 2011 Tracey was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate how leading healthcare organisations support clinician involvement in decision making and leading change across UK, Denmark, Sweden and the US.
Tracey has a Bachelor of Medicine from the University of Newcastle; Fellowship of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists; a Master of Health Policy from the University of Sydney; and is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Foundation CEO, Mark Burdack, said: “I am thrilled to have someone of Tracey’s calibre, experience and intellectual influence as a new director.
“The Foundation is recognised for its work at the cutting edge of innovation in the rural and remote health care, and we need people with the innovative capacity, compassion and intellect of Tracey working alongside us to build sustainable solutions to the ongoing challenges of health care delivery in our communities.
"The Foundation’s board has always stepped up to share responsibility for the challenges facing our communities, and I learn everyday from their expertise and wisdom.
“The old ‘set and forget’ approach to rural and remote health has not served our communities well, as demonstrated by the 50,000 and more avoidable deaths in our communities over the last 5 years alone.
“The Foundation has spent the last 20 plus years designing practical, affordable and successful programs alongside our communities to ensure sustainable delivery of health and care to some of Australia’s most vulnerable people.
“Because they are solutions designed by rural and remote people, they do not tend to get the attention they deserve in policy circles in our cities even though there is comprehensive research to show that models developed by the Foundation and other rurally-based organisations are highly effective and affordable.
“The Foundation has a core focus on translating these rural successes into tangible policy and funding reform to empower a whole new approach to rural health care that is community-led, people-centred, place-based, adaptive and integrated. Tracey will bring to the table a whole new way of thinking about the challenge, the solutions and the future of rural and remote health” said Mr Burdack.
For more information contact Mark Burdack on 0418974988.