Our People: Central to healthcare

CEO of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN) Emma McCahon explores how the Safe and Connected Operating Model is reshaping the way teams work together every day.  Emma describes each of the six elements of Safe and Connected and how they work together. She reflects on the positive impact she has seen on staff and patients in the first 6 months since it was launched.   She breaks down the role of daily team huddles – just one component of Safe and Connected that brings staff together to communicate, problem solve, and coordinate their daily tasks in real-time. Emma also reflects on how the model draws on international best practice and why 2026 is the year of “go and see,” encouraging leaders to stay close to the work and connected to their teams. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

Victoria discovered her passion for nursing through her strong desire to help others. As a dedicated nurse leader, she has gained experience across various specialties, but now proudly calls Heart and Lung, her professional home. Her role as Nurse Lead involves working in a team caring for patients who are extremely vulnerable, and critically unwell in challenging situations.Victoria is proud of a core component of the Heart & Lung program - the daily huddle – a communication initiative designed to ensure support patient and staff safety, drive care coordination as well as creating a culture of high performing teams.   The daily huddle creates a dedicated space for the team to connect, align on priorities and identify and address risks and barriers, taking timely action to deliver better outcomes for patients. If you would like to get in touch, you can email us at [email protected] you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 2 Episode 5 | We speak with Dr Sam Whittle about the incredible transformation that has taken place in the last 20 years regarding medical care options for patients with inflammatory disease. As a Senior Consultant Rheumatologist at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Sam says having the opportunity to better support patients over many years -- through teen years, adulthood, and into older age -- is one of the things he loves most about his job. As Sam reveals in this episode, he works in all areas of rheumatology but is mainly focused on inflammatory arthritis, and other conditions involving persistent pain and fatigue in muscles and joints. Sam also tells us about an exciting approach known as 'living guidelines' to ensure patients benefit from the very latest in healthcare research. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 2 | Episode 4 |The RAH’s Hyperbaric Medicine Unit provides critical treatment for people with damage linked with previous radiation treatment, for wounds that are slow to heal, and for people experiencing sudden hearing loss. Other Medicare-approved conditions suited for treatment include persistent or dangerous bacterial infections such as gangrene, and crush injuries.More than 70,000 high pressure oxygen treatments have been delivered at the RAH’s Hyperbaric Unit, serving 4,000 patients over 40 years.Former Navy Clearance Diver Troy Pudney is Senior Hyperbaric Chamber Supervisor at the RAH. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 2 | Episode 3 |   It's hard for busy GPs to stay up to date with all the care options available for their patients. Dr Caitlin Sum is here to help. Caitlin is GP Integration Officer at Central Adelaide Local Health Network, and our guest in this episode of Our People. Caitlin is part of a team that supports doctors in finding the most appropriate care for complex patient situations – whether that's through community general practice, out-of-hospital services, or as hospital in-patients. She works with dedicated colleagues across the Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and community clinics. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 2 | Episode 2 |   Australian athlete. Parent. Occupational therapist. In this episode of Our People we're talking with Sarah Heard, CALHN Senior Manager in occupational therapy (OT). Sarah has represented Australia numerous times in canoe polo, an intense team sport where players with a kayak and a paddle chase a ball and score goals on water. To Sarah, having the capacity to play sport allows her to fully express herself as a complete person. And that’s exactly what she helps deliver for the consumers and families she supports as an OT. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 2 | Episode 1 |   We’re kicking off season two of Our People with a very special guest – CALHN’s CEO Emma McCahon.Emma joined the network in early 2024 and hit the ground running. She is committed to a model of leadership that leans into the expertise and experience of people and teams on the ground, building workforce capability through fostering trust and collaboration. In this podcast episode we learn about Emma's journey to her role as CEO at CALHN – with inspiration from both inside and outside of the health sector – and her focus on safety and connection as key aspects in delivering high quality care in 2025 and beyond. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 8 | We speak with Associate Professor Liz Sutton about how her professional and personal experiences have shaped her into an effective leader and facilitator of high quality healthcare research. Liz is Director of Research at Central Adelaide Local Health Network. A common misconception about researchers is that they’re white-coated introverts who tinker away in laboratories, disconnected from the real world. In reality researchers are diverse, interesting and passionate people who are highly motivated to make a real difference. Liz is not your cookie-cutter health researcher. She brings a background that touches on many core aspects of health, including nursing, biomedical ethics, international development and not-for-profits, workforce training and accreditation, policy, advanced care planning and more.If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 7 | We speak to Dr Maura Kenny, who is inaugural Director of Staff Wellbeing at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.Work plays a pivotal role in our lives. Therefore, enhancing the health and wellbeing of any workforce is vital – this is especially so in the healthcare sector when some mistakes can be life-threatening. However, humans are complex. Workplaces are complex. Mental health is complex. That means there won’t be a ‘one size fits all approach’ when addressing wellbeing challenges of an organisation and its people.The good news is that more healthcare organisations are making the care of their people a top priority.If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 6 | We speak to CALHN Nurse Educator Joy Booth about the impact of her role educating Central Adelaide perioperative nursing staff and upskilling health care workers in Timor Leste, also known as East Timor. Joy has worked at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for more than 30 years and during that time has undertaken 10 visits to Timor with the Overseas Specialist Surgical Association of Australia, or OSSAA, to share her knowledge and skills to support our closest overseas neighbour.Joy is a Nurse Educator working in the Technical Suites at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. She has specialised in orthopaedics and trauma surgery and spent 25 years as a senior instrument/circulating clinician before transitioning into leadership and education. Joy has served as Squadron Leader in the RAAF for 10 years, bringing her trauma surgery expertise to the military. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 5 | We speak to Alia Cibich, who is the Clinical Data Manager at the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, a statewide service delivered by the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. Alia is also a PhD candidate,  investigating the development of new cancers in patients who have previously had a blood cancer and received a stem cell transplant. This research aims to find out how many patients are affected, what drives the cancer occurrence and to develop a treatment guideline for clinicians to best manage this complication. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 4 | We speak to Dr Chloe Furst about her role as a geriatrician and palliative care physician, supporting patients over the age of 65 to improve their health and wellbeing.  Chloe has been helping people navigate life’s most unknown journey for more than a decade. Although it is associated with dying, palliative care is a specialist area of health focused on improving quality of life in response to a life-threatening illness.  Chloe is a dual-trained geriatrician and palliative care physician working across both specialties at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN).If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 3 | We speak to Troy Andrews about his role at the SA Spinal Cord Injury Unit, which supports patients as they begin their recovery and learn to maximise their independence and abilities. Troy is gold medal winning Paralympian, an Order of Australia medal recipient, and also an allied health assistant and wheelchair technician in the Spinal Rehab Unit. Based at the Repat Health Precinct, the Unit is one of the specialised clinical and community health services delivered by the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 2 | Andrew Wiley speaks about the opportunities and benefits of providing high quality healthcare to people in custody.Andrew discusses the positive impact he and his team of nurses make in the lives of the patients they care for, who are among the most vulnerable populations in our community.   Andrew is the Director of the South Australian Prison Health Service, one of the specialised clinical and community health services delivered by the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

CALHN Our People podcast | Season 1 Episode 1 |  An Irish-born doctor shares his experiences of taking a leap of faith to carve out a new life with a move to South Australia to advance his medical career at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.Toby is Head of Unit, General Medicine at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Medical Emergency Response Consultant at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide.If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.

From the Central Adelaide Local Health Network, this is Our People.Listen to the personal stories of the people who deliver world-class healthcare services at CALHN and gain an insight into the diversity and range of the impactful work carried out across the network.To listen to upcoming episodes, find us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.If you want to get in touch with us please contact the Central Adelaide Local Health Network.