Stephanie Easthope

Experience

• 

  Malaghan Institute of Medical Research & the Wellington Asthma Research Group

  Jan 1998 - Oct 2000

  Research Fellow

  Designed and/or conducted preclinical studies and phase III clinical trials including gaining ethics approvals and research grants, recruiting patient volunteers, and writing up trial results for publication.Co-author of two original research articles.

• 

  Wolters Kluwer Health

  Oct 2000 - Dec 2011

  Responsible for: - identification of improvement opportunities across the NZ operation- facilitation and project management of improvement teams- establishment of the Project Management Office- providing Sponsor training- business process mapping- co-chair of business re-engineering initiative- leadership team facilitation- faciliation of strategic planning meetings- Lean Six Sigma green belt mentor. Responsible for overseeing the performance and workflow of a team of medical writing staff, and working with BDMs, clinical experts and pharmaceutical industry contacts to achieve comprehensive and timely publication of single-agent drug reviews. Authored single-agent drug review articles for publication in the Adis International Review Journals. This involved evaluation and collation of clinical trial data into a best-evidence review to inform prescribing and formulary decision makers.

  • Manager Operational Excellence/Portfolio Governance Manager

    Jan 2006 - Dec 2011

  • Team Leader

    Feb 2002 - Sept 2006

  • Medical Writer

    Oct 2000 - Feb 2002
• 

  Springer Healthcare

  Jan 2012 - Feb 2013

  Editorial Manager, Adis Journals

  Responsible for the management of three functional departments of 60 staff who produce the Adis International Medical Review Journals and Newsletters. Work with a production team and outsource vendors to create print journals and deliver electronic feeds to online platforms. While in this role, my primary responsibility was to outsource the pre-publication function. This involved process alignment, consultation and redundancy management.

• 

  Ko Awatea, Counties Manukau Health

  Feb 2013 - Apr 2017

  Responsibilities:- Management of the improvement advisory team (12 Advisors) at Ko Awatea- Provide consulting and guidance to clinical and operational leadership on the improvement strategy and application of improvement methodologies- Design and delivery of improvement training for internal and external staff- Design improvement work programmes to address organisational and service issues for both internal customers and external contracts across the public sector- Improvement Lead for the Faster Cancer Treatment improvement programme- Improvement Consultant for the Health and Disability Commissioner.Achievements:- Designed and co-delivered the 10-month Improvement Advisor training programme delivered to healthcare professionals in Australia and NZ. Now in its second year. - Co-developed and delivered a 2-day national Improvement Science course to introduce participants to improvement methods- Planned and facilitated Rapid Improvement Events e.g: Faster Cancer Treatment – a rapid review of 6 tumour streams, and diagnostic services to define the current state and diagnose the cause of delays. Recommendations approved by ELT and project teams deployed in June 2015. Performance has improved from 52% to currently 80% (June 2016) of patients being treated within the target 62 days and continues to improve toward the target of 85%.Health and Disability Commissioner – conducted a planning session and 3-day Event to identify opportunities to reduce the time taken for complaints to be closed. 13 quick wins identified and implemented in the 2 weeks following the event and 5 project teams deployed. Teams receive ongoing consulting advice to meet project goals by September 2016.- Improvement manager for “Lean GP” working with four General Practices to address a prioritised issue (e.g. patient flow, lab results handling, timeliness of prescription requests)- Speaker at SA Partners Lean Business Systems conference 2015 & 2016.- Speaker at APAC Forum, Sydney, 2016 Show less As Improvement Advisor, my role was to lead project teams through application of improvement methods (Lean, Model for Improvement) and change management approaches to support successful improvement project outcomes. During the projects, I also taught and mentored frontline staff in applying improvement methods and analysing performance data. I was also an Improvement Advisor for the Beyond 20,000 Days campaign to reduce demand on secondary hospital services.Achievements:- Improvement lead for "Supporting Life After Stroke", a project that delivered savings of 16 hospital bed days per patient with mild to moderate stroke and delivered intensive rehabilitation in the patients own home. **2014 winner of Counties Manukau Health clinical excellence award for science and improvement projects **Winner of Patient Flow Optimization category at the 2015 Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare- Improvement lead for "SMART", a project that incorporated pharmacists into the medical patient assessment in emergency department resulting in 9-fold reduction in prescribing errors and 25% reduction in wait time for patients to be seen by General Medicine team: **2014 finalist of process improvement excellence award- Completed 9-month Improvement Advisor Programme through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (Boston, USA).Promoted to Improvement Manager (Faculty Manager) in November 2013. Show less

  • Improvement Manager

    Nov 2013 - Apr 2017

  • Improvement Advisor

    Feb 2013 - Nov 2013
• 

  Emerge Aotearoa

  Nov 2016 - Mar 2017

  Contract Consultant

  Providing consultancy services to Emerge Aotearoa to design and support the implementation of a Quality Improvement function, and plan the capability development.

• 

  ACC New Zealand

  May 2017 - Jan 2018

  Design Lead
• 

  Francis Health

  Jan 2018 - Aug 2022

  • Principal

    May 2022 - Aug 2022

  • Senior Manager

    Jan 2021 - May 2022

  • Manager

    Jan 2018 - Jan 2021
• 

  IHI

  Aug 2022 - now

  Working with the Victorian Department of Health - to improve timely emergency care.

  • Senior Project Director

    Sept 2023 - now

  • Project Director

    Aug 2022 - Sept 2023