11th Annual National Lean Healthcare Symposium

Welcome to the 11th Annual National Lean Healthcare Symposium! Join us on Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at the Light House Cinema for a day filled with insightful discussions from international and national experts and leaders in person-centred process improvement in healthcare.

This in-person event brings together healthcare professionals and all those engaged in transformation in health systems to share their experiences of best practices and strategies for implementing process improvement in primary, acute and community healthcare settings.

Guest speakers include:

Dr. Kath McDonald and Caroline Dickson of supporting people who care for others to care for themselves using Applied Storytelling.

Dr Kath MacDonald SFHE, is an Honorary Lecturer in Nursing at Queen Margaret University. She set up ListenUpStorytelling in 2020 . She is an Apprentice Storyteller at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. Her research interests include: poetry, therapeutic storytelling, creative methods, and staff and patient experience. Recent projects include performance storytelling at the Edinburgh International Book festival in 2024, the Scottish International storytelling festival 2023, CAKE, viewed here: CAKE: A perfect recipe for wellbeing and effectiveness. - Overview (listenupstorytelling.co.uk) developed with Dr Caroline Dickson, and To Mind your Life- a pocket book of poems for nurses and midwives. https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2021/05/to-mind-your-life-poems-for-nurses-and-midwives/.

Caroline is a Director of ListenUpStorytelling and a Director of the Person-centred Practice_International Community of Practice. These positions reflect her passion for developing healthy workplace cultures through transformational practice development and narrative. Caroline is also a Fellow of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Queens Nursing Institute, Scotland. Other research Caroline has conducted has used principally participatory methods for topics such as leadership, developing person-centred cultures in community-based settings.

Prof. Dr. Christoph von Dach

Christoph is lecturer at Bern University of Applied Science, Switzerland. He teaches on the interprofessional Mater of Science in Nursing (MScN) course and is researcher in the topic of person-centred practice.

He is also a nurse consultant at the Solothurner Spitäler AG hospital group, Switzerland and a member of the board of the person-centred practice International Community of Practice (pcp ICoP CIC).

His main topics are: person-centered practice development, advanced nursing practice, and spirituality in nursing.

Dr Maureen Flynn, PhD

Is a nurse passionate about connections and working together to enhance the quality and safety of health and social care #QIreland. Maureen works together with teams and patient partners on what matters to us - such as quality, safety and improvement, clinical governance, policy making, clinical management, clinical practice, education, research and publications. She has gained expertise working across a range of organisational and cultural settings, within St Vincent’s University Hospital, Department of Health, Commission on Nursing, HSE and HSE funded services, where she has gained a track record of achievement and leadership in strategy formulation and implementation, designing and implementing change. Maureen is a Fellow, Scottish Patient Safety Fellowship Programme with a PhD from University College Dublin; member of the Q Community; Master of Education and Master of Science focused in Health Services Education and Management, from University of Dublin, Trinity College; and Lean Healthcare Green Belt from Ontario Tech University.

Geralyn Hynes

Following a period of working as a staff nurse and midwife, Geralyn worked overseas as a volunteer. She then went to college and undertook an MSc before undertaking research in Zambia. These were formative experiences in learning to question what seemed to be the obvious. She returned to clinical practice as a Practice Nurse developing a keen interest in chronic illness and the patient experience. She then went onto work in academia as the first appointed lecturer practitioner in the country and undertook a PhD looking at COPD and palliative care in acute hospital care. From there, she worked as an academic in the RCSI and later in Trinity College Dublin. Geralyn is now retired as result of illness and has learned first-hand from her experiences as a patient. Learning that she wished she had when teaching.

Dr. John Fitzsimons

John is a Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in allergy at Children’s Health Ireland, Temple Street where he is an RCSI Honorary Clinical Associate Professor.

He also works with the HSE National Quality & Patient Safety (NQPS) Directorate as Clinical Director for Quality Improvement (QI) and with the RCPI as lead faculty for QI Education.

He is course director of the HSE funded RCPI Quality Improvement and Leadership Post-Graduate certificate which has over 750 graduates and coached more than 250 improvement projects.

He has contributed to national improvement projects including Irish Paediatric Early Warning System (PEWS), Situation Awareness for Everyone (SAFE) and the HSE Patient Safety Strategy 2019-2014.

He is a visiting Research Fellow with the Centre for Innovative Human Systems (Human Factors), Trinity College Dublin.

He is an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Patient Safety (2022) and a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Quality Improvement (2024).

He is a regular host and contributor to NQPS bi-monthly webinar “QPS talktime”.

Dr. Marie Ward

Marie E. Ward is an international award winning embedded researcher at St James's Hospital Dublin, Ireland where she is engaged in a programme of Health Systems Research and Improvement.

She holds a PhD in Psychology Human Factors from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at TCD’s multidisciplinary Centre for Innovative Human Systems which engages in Human Factors research and consultancy with all industries to improve human wellbeing and system performance.

Marie is a lecturer on the Masters in Managing Risk and System Change (TCD) and the Masters in Human Factors in Patient Safety at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI); Chairperson of the Irish Human Factors and Ergonomics Society; a member of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (UK) special interest group on Artificial Intelligence in healthcare.

Her research interests include how to enable patient and staff safety and wellbeing from a systems perspective and co-designing new systems from a socio-technical perspective.

Originally an architect, Aileen first entered the world of healthcare in 2011 when she was working with a design firm on a major hospital development at the Mater Hospital. She quickly became interested in the interdependence between spatial design and work systems. Recognising the potential in this space, Aileen undertook advanced studies in process engineering with further training in innovation and leadership in healthcare. She spent the next ten years working with teams to deeply understand and fundamentally reconfigure systems and services in the healthcare sector.

In her current role as Lean and System Redesign Lead, she applies a systems and process lens to Mater Transformation's improvement work and uses her years of design experience to bring about sustainable, workable solutions that have the user at heart. As an adjunct associate professor at UCD Health Systems, Aileen teaches and mentors on the Mater Lean Academy process improvement programmes.

Seán Paul Teeling (PhD) is a Lecturer, Researcher and Fellow in Teaching and Academic Development at University College Dublin, Ireland.

He lectures and researches in person-centred process improvement and has received teaching excellence awards at both college and university level. Over the last eight years, he has collaborated with both clinical practice and research based colleagues in the development of a person-centred model of Lean Six Sigma, officially launched in 2023, and now in use in healthcare facilities in seven countries.

Dr Teeling is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, an accredited facilitator of Person-centred Cultures in Healthcare, and is an honorary senior research fellow with the Centre for Person-Centred Practice Research, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland. His research focuses on the impacts of improvement on all involved in care delivery, both patients and staff.

He co-founded the Mater Lean Academy in 2013 , a joint enterprise with the Mater Misericordiae University hospital and University College Dublin. The Academy co-delivers practice based person-centred improvement programmes and has facilitated over 350 substantive improvement initiatives with 52 clinical partners in the last decade.

He continues to pursue his passion for creative, innovative and person-centred solutions to the complexities of healthcare.

Úna is the head of Mater Transformation, having established the office in 2013.

Úna’s area of special interest is collective leadership in teams. She completed her PhD as part of the Co-Lead programme https://www.ucd.ie/collectiveleadership/ at University College Dublin (UCD) in 2021. Through this approach, she has developed a reputation for enabling teams to work across silos and hierarchies—building trust, embracing positive conflict and instilling the accountability and ownership that is fundamental to real and lasting change.

As Executive Lead for Strategic Projects, Úna has most recently overseen the clinical, operational and people planning for the Rock Wing and Major Trauma Centre projects at the hospital.

Úna guest lectures on transformational systems level change and team interventions at UCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She is also a leadership mentor with the Irish Management Institute. Her work has been published in BMC Health Services Research, BMC Medical Research Methodology, BMC Medical Education, BMJ Open and the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health.

Siobhan has been working at the intersection of innovation and healthcare since 2011 when she managed the roll-out of the Productive Operating Theatre programme at the Mater. In 2013, she joined Mater Transformation, ultimately becoming Lead for Service Innovation & Design.

Siobhan is passionate about the opportunities that emerge when people and ideas from different backgrounds come together to solve problems. In 2016, Siobhan piloted a collaboration with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) to explore what value human centred design might add to Mater Transformation’s work. The collaboration has grown exponentially since then as healthcare teams recognise the value that design brings through its strong focus on human factors, intuition, risk taking and creativity.

Siobhan’s interest in innovation in healthcare stems from diverse sources. On completion of a Masters in International Marketing, she worked with Enterprise Ireland in Silicon Valley, supporting Irish tech start-ups in driving new business opportunities in the US market. She then returned to Ireland to train as a speech and language therapist and worked at the frontline of healthcare for 12 years before joining Mater Transformation full time in 2013.

Michelle is an improvement facilitator, joining the Mater Transformation team in 2013. She has a background in biotechnology where she gained her analytical and process engineering skills. She started her career in healthcare in Medic*tion safety, implementing change to prevent drug errors.

She is passionate about problem solving on the frontline in healthcare through education, empathy and insight. She is skilled at breaking down complex systems, facilitating staff through small tests of change, bringing persistence and people focus to help make new ways of working a reality. Her attention to detail and use of data in an accessible and pragmatic way helps drive lasting change.

She teaches on the UCD and Mater Lean Academy programmes and has mentored numerous green belt teams on projects in the public, private and primary care sector. Her work has been published in quality journals. She has a Bachelor’s degree from DCU, a Masters. from TU Dublin and Graduate Diploma in for Healthcare with black belt from UCD.

Karen is an improvement facilitator working with teams to find solutions to systemic problems that result in improvements for both service users and staff as well as benefits to the Mater Hospital. She always had a particular interest in service development and improvement while working clinically as a Senior Physiotherapist in Neurology and Stroke in Ireland and overseas.

She attended University College Dublin (UCD) to complete a Professional Certificate in Process Improvement in Health Systems (Green Belt) in 2015. She then progressed to complete a Graduate Certificate in Process Improvement in Health Systems (Black Belt) in 2020, where her project delivered significant improvements to therapy input for people after acute stroke. She completed her studies with an MSc in Leadership, Innovation and Management.

Karen regularly teaches on the Mater Lean Academy White Belt Programme as well as mentors teams on the UCD health systems programmes.

Professor and Programme Director for the MSc in Leadership, Innovation and Management for Healthcare and related pathway programmes in leading, innovating and managing in health systems.
Martin is a Registered Mental Health, General Nurse and Nurse Tutor. He holds a BSc, BA, MEd and MA degrees from the Open University and MSc degrees in Nursing and in Business (Leadership and Management Practice) from UCD, the latter following completion of Professional Diplomas in Business and Executive Coaching; Strategy, Innovation and Change; and Leadership Development at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business.
He completed his doctorate at The Open University Research School in September 2007. My doctoral thesis was a sociological investigation into the underlying principles structuring academic nursing in Ireland.
He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) degree by the University of Connecticut in May 2014.
Also, in 2014, he qualified as a Certified Analytic-Network Coach (see www.simonwestern.com). He is accredited as a provider of Oshry's Organization Workshop and 'Where Cultures Meet' programmes (see www.powerandsystems.com).
Following completion of executive education programmes in 'Leadership for the 21st century: chaos, conflict and courage', 'Driving Government Performance' and ‘Creating Collaborative Solutions: Innovations in Governance’, he was awarded an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in October 2018.
He was Inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) in October 2015 and as a Fellow of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (FFNMRCSI) in December 2016.
He completed a Professional Diploma in Entrepreneurial Education at the UCD Innovation Academy in 2019.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Light House Cinema, Market Street South, Dublin 7, Ireland