2018 National Conference Adelaide

Featured Presenters

Tuesday 29 May

9.00am – 10.30am

As the speech pathology profession matures and evolves, there will continue to be an ongoing need for practice change. Practice change has many drivers: consumer need; an advancing evidence base; clinical innovations; financial efficiency; local service needs; population change; government policy etc. If we are to continue to have a profession with a strong identity and the capacity to make meaningful contributions to the modern education and healthcare landscape, then practice change is a necessity. To achieve practice change we need to step away from long-held traditional paradigms and embrace new practice and service delivery models. We need a workforce ready, committed and willing to accept change, and we must have the evidence base to support these new roles and responsibilities. In the past decade within the public health service in Queensland, there have been multiple top down policy changes driving new models of care and expanded scope of practice across allied health. Within this landscape, there has been greater capacity to examine new ways the speech pathology profession both works and engages within health services. Making change to ensure clinicians are working to full scope, considering extended scope models when appropriate, and adopting delegation models, is being actively encouraged to help achieve the common health objective of a client-centred, cost effective health service. In this Elizabeth Usher Memorial Award lecture, the benefits, issues and impacts of expanded scope of practice initiatives and new models of care will be discussed. Calling on the insights obtained from implementing multiple practice change initiatives within health in Queensland, this lecture will highlight important individual, service and training considerations needed to support the ongoing growth of our profession. TEU – Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture Expanding scope of practice: Inspiring practice change and raising new considerations

Professor Elizabeth (Liz) Ward

Professor Elizabeth (Liz) Ward is the Professor of the Centre for Functioning and Health Research (CFAHR) in Queensland Health and Professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland. She is a leading international researcher with over 250 publications, and has been a keynote/invited speaker in 20 countries. Her research interests primarily centre on the practice area of dysphagia, with particular interest in acute care populations and patients receiving management for head and neck cancer. She has had extensive experience in health services research: building evidence for clinical practice areas, evaluating new models of care and addressing undergraduate/workforce clinical training issues. In her 20 years working at The University of Queensland, Professor Ward has received multiple university awards for the high quality of her undergraduate teaching, and in 2017 was awarded The University of Queensland Award for Excellence in Research Higher Degree Supervision. In 2014, Professor Ward was made Fellow of Speech Pathology Australia in recognition of the standing of her contributions to the profession. Since 2010, Professor Ward has been the Professor of the Centre for Functioning and Health Research (CFAHR); a conjoint position between the Metro South Hospital and Health Service of Queensland Health and The University of Queensland. In this role she has had the responsibility of building research capacity and stimulating clinical research within the allied health workforce of the public health service of Queensland. Through her leadership role within CFAHR, Professor Ward has assisted numerous clinical teams to implement and evaluate new models of care. She is passionate about improving health services for patients and reducing the “research-to-practice” gap in evidence implementation. Her work has led to many health service enhancements and has validated multiple new and expanded clinical roles in both speech pathology and other allied health professions.

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