Clinical Governance
Webcast recorded 18 May 2022
In this WOBChat, Claire Braund spoke to Melanie Hay and her colleagues from the Australian Institute for Clinical Governance, Dr Mark O'Brien & Dr Cathy Balding.
Interested in a Clinical Governance Workshop?
Guests
Melanie Hay
Melanie is the Director of the Australasian Institute of Clinical Governance (AICG) and has over 25 years’ experience across the healthcare sector with a passion to drive safety and quality improvements across the continuum of care. She strongly believes in the further strengthening of our healthcare system through greater collaboration, improved culture, the application of good clinical governance and strong and passionate leadership.
As former private consultant and Director of Health at PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC), Melanie has worked alongside State and Federal governments, Primary Healthcare Networks, clinicians, hospitals, not-for-profits and lead Data and Safety and Quality Agencies to drive and strive for continuous quality improvement across the system and ultimately deliver better patient outcomes.
Dr Mark O'Brien
Mark is the Programme Director of the Oxford Healthcare Leadership Programme and Associate Fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Queensland, a Non-Executive Director of St John of God Healthcare Australia and a member of the Advisory Board of Dietician Connection. Previous roles include the Medical Director and co-founder of the Cognitive Institute and International Program Lead for Risk Prevention and International Program Director, Educational Services, for the Medical Protection Society headquartered in London. He originally commenced his professional life as a proceduralist General Practitioner in rural Australia.
Dr O’Brien is a regular national and international consultant and speaker on quality and safety, clinical governance and healthcare leadership. His career has seen him provide expert advice and training to Hospital Boards, Healthcare Executives and Clinical Leaders in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South East Asia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. He is a published author and passionate advocate for quality and safety in Healthcare.
In 2016 he was awarded the President’s Award by the Australian College of Health Service Management for his services to Healthcare in Queensland.
Mark works closely with the AICG as their Principal Board and Executive consultant and facilitator.
Dr Cathy Balding

Cathy works with aged care boards and executives to implement ‘strategic clinical governance systems with purpose’: focusing on achieving a consistently high quality point of care experience, and is the author of three books on the topic. Cathy has conducted and published research into effective quality systems, and developed quality and clinical governance frameworks and associated training for the SA and Victorian Departments of Health. For a number of years she was involved in the Victorian ‘Beyond Compliance’ public sector aged care improvement and measurement program as a consultant and trainer, including development and evaluation of Victorian aged care Quality Indicators and the Victorian ‘Aged Care Governance Readiness Tool.’
She is a current RSL LifeCare NSW Board member, chairing the Board Quality Committee, and sits on the Alfred Health Quality Committee as an external expert.
Cathy works closely with the AICG as a clinical governance consultant and Board facilitator.