Celebrating the International Day of the Nurse and the Midwife

Celebrating the International Day of the Nurse and the Midwife

“Glocalisation in Healthcare - Nurses and Midwives thinking globally and acting locally to drive the policy and educational agenda” 

We live in a ‘Glocal” world where what happens globally impacts us locally and what happens locally can have an impact globally. This under-theorised concept has profound implications for the roles of nurses and midwives particularly as seen during the recent pandemic.

The immediate response to and the innovation demonstrated by nurses and midwives globally were facilitated through shared knowledge, skills and technological advances.

‘The 2020’s began with a cry of pain but with the right policies this decade could yet roar’ (The Economist, 2021).

Empowering nurses and midwives to enhance, continue and scale up the learnings acquired, will drive the responses needed to eradicate western style pandemics such as non-communicable diseases. Irish society is fortunate to have developed policies such as Sláintecare and

National Maternity strategies. Understanding the global nurses and midwives’ ability to manage future health challenges is sketched out in this conference.

Testing a Proof-of Concept Community Virtual Ward- Tanya King 


Ms Tanya King is Deputy Chief Nursing Officer in the Irish Department of Health since November 2018 with responsibility for the policy areas of Advanced Practice, Education and Regulation. Prior to this appointment Tanya was Director of Nursing in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital from August 2014 and concurrently appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer in May 2016.

An acute 600 bed hospital, it is the national centre for cardiac surgery, heart and lung transplantation, extra corporeal life support (ECLS), spinal injuries, pulmonary hypertension, bone anchored hearing aid and accommodates the National Isolation Unit. Tanya spent her clinical career working in a variety of roles as a specialist in Oncology. In addition to her Degree in Nursing Studies (1998) she holds diplomas in counselling (1985), teaching (1988) and quality and leadership (2017). She completed her Master’s in Healthcare Management in 2006 and was awarded a Fellowship by examination from the Faculty of Nursing of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in December

2019. In July 2019, the Irish Department of Health published a Policy on The Development of Graduate to Advanced Nursing and Midwifery practice. This policy addresses the way we utilise our skilled and knowledgeable nursing and midwifery workforce by changing the way we educate, train and deploy nurses and midwives from graduate to advanced level. Having been part of the policy development team from inception to publication,

Tanya is now working to ensure its implementation across the Irish Health Service.

Reorganisation and Management of Nursing Staff during the COVID-19 pandemic - Ms Elena Garofalo


Elena graduated in General Nursing in 1994 at Italian Red Cross School of Nursing and obtained a Master Degree in Management of Health Professions in 2007 at LIUC Università Cattaneo. She has been working at Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan since 1998 as Staff Nurse and since 2003 as Clinical Nurse Manager. She worked in different areas such as acute medicine, oncology, haematology, bone marrow transplant unit, radiotherapy, thoracic surgical oncology unit, breast unit. During her career, Elena attended various management courses; she also teaches modules at Humanitas University. Elena is also a member of the committee that reviews hospital’s policies and protocols for the improvement of patient’s care and satisfaction and the quality of the nursing care. In her profession, Elena values the patient’s quality and safety, teamwork and leadership to achieve shared goals in a healthy workplace environment. She was born and she lives in Milan, she is a mommy and she loves smiling!

Glocalisation, a view from the Maternity Services - Ms Mary Brosnan


Mary is the Director of Midwifery and Nursing in the National Maternity Hospital since 2006. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems in University College Dublin. She represents midwifery on many national committees, supporting and driving change in the maternity and women’s health services. She was a member of the National Maternity Strategy Taskforce which was launched in 2016, the framework which is influencing the future development of the Irish maternity services for the coming years. Mary is very interested in research and is a founder member of the Joint Research Network between the National Maternity Hospital and University College Dublin which was established in 2007 and has led many successful research projects being completed and published. She is a former Honorary President of the Irish Association of Directors of Nursing and Midwifery (IADNAM) from 2014 to 2016. In December 2017, Mary was awarded an Honorary Fellowship ad Eundem of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery in the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, for her contribution to midwifery. She is also the first Irish “Florence Nightingale Foundation” Midwifery Scholar, which was awarded in London in September 2019.

Enpowering Nurse to Manage Chronic Disease in PCMH Team-based Care - Mr Jingwei Liu


Mr Jingwei Liu is the President of Maple Primary Care Transformation Research Center. He has been dedicated to China Primary Care Transformation for more than 10 years; In the past 5 years he has led the first PCMH pilot project in China – Wuhou PCMH transformation. Right now he is leading the PCMH promotion and rollout in Sichuan province. Mr Liu has a previous 14-year experience in IBM, he is the first member of IBM Academy of Technology in IBM China software group. In his previous roles, he led IBM China information management technical team and has been responsible for IBM healthcare cloud initiative and related strategy development, Mr Liu was awarded his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Beihang University and his Masters degree in Information Management from Renmin University.

Nursing's Role in Global Impact and Transformation of Healthcare Delivery - Prof Joane Shear. 


Joanne Shear, a family nurse practitioner, worked for over 38 years with the US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) as a clinical operations and implementation expert with experience at the local, regional and national levels. From 2008-2016, Prof Shear, held the role of the National Primary Care Clinical Program Manager for the VHA as part of the VHA Primary Care Office, and was a leader involved in developing, planning, and leading the design and implementation of the VHA patient-centered medical home model, a highly-successful network model that was rolled out in the over 1,000 VHA primary care practices across the US servicing over 9 million patients. In her national role, she served as a clinical resource in planning, designing, integrating, implementing, modifying, administering and evaluating clinical care and national healthcare policy. Since retiring from the VA, she has served as a consultant for the World Bank Group, Harvard School of Public Health, IBM and Ireland Ministry of Health, among others, and has worked in Low and Middle Income Countries including Turkey, China, and the Philippines – to support the design and implementation of new comprehensive primary care models. Her specific expertise includes integrated care delivery models, care/case management, care coordination, disease/population management, measurement and metric development, team roles and functions and virtual care modalities.

Expanding Nursing's Scope - Dr Sharon Watts


Dr Watts has her Nursing Doctorate from Case Western Reserve University and has worked exclusively in the field of diabetes for the past 23 years. She is certified as a diabetes educator for 18 years and as a family nurse practitioner for over 36 years. She is the National Advisor for the VHA Office of Nursing Services Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes field advisory committee for the past eleven years. She is active in diabetes quality improvement research and publishing articles and book chapters on diabetes as well as national lectures. She has been an invited guest speaker for National Diabetes Forums such as American Diabetes Association, American Association of Diabetes Educators and VA/DoD National conferences. She holds a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma Quality Improvement. Dr Watts has been the lead for Cleveland’s inpatient diabetes Joint Commission Certification for the past 3 years. She is active on several national VHA committees , VA/DoD Diabetes Guidelines creation and, Federal Interagency Workforce committee.

Northwell Health - Ms Elaine Brennan


Elaine Brennan originally joined Northwell Health to create the Pharma Ventures group and led the innovative approach to managing and developing collaborative and strategic relationships with the pharmaceutical/ biotech and device industry. Ms Brennan subsequently established Northwell’s International Program developing strategic alliances with government trade agencies providing Northwell with access to a pipeline of international innovative technologies and companies. In addition, she manages several strategic network relationships on behalf of Northwell that drive value across many cross functional areas of the health system. Previously, Ms Brennan was the CEO of Socrates, a health care information technology company, where she led the development and launch of its technology platform in the United States. She also headed up Life Sciences for Enterprise Ireland (Irish Government), managing life science companies entering the US market, screening them for market readiness, assisting with fund raising and commercialization path ways. She also founded Gastroenterology Ireland, which combined a cluster of companies, research and development, and Irish opinion leaders in Ireland and the US with the purpose of creating a niche competency for a country, driving funding and innovation. Her pharmaceutical career at Roche, Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie included marketing/sales and clinical roles launching blockbuster products in the virology sector. Ms Brennan has published scientific articles on genetic engineering and biodegradable polymers applications, and patented many products in the same area. She earned her science degree in the United Kingdom and her early education in Ireland and Belgium.

Practice Transformation Away from Episode of Care - Dr Paul Grundy


Dr Grundy known as the Godfather of the PCMH has spent 4 decades focused on population health built on a platform of a healing relationship of trust in primary care. Winner of the Barbara Starfield Patient Centered Primary Care, the NCQA Quality and the Sappington, The Second order of the Panda from the Governor of Sichuan – awards for his work in primary care transformation. Paul spent over 17 years as an executive at IBM where he was Chief Medical Officer and Global Director, Healthcare Transformation, IBM HCLS Industry and a member of the IBM Industry Academy prior to retirement from IBM in 2018. He is a Healthcare Ambassador for the nation of Denmark, One of 7 given the Honorary Life Member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Only American award an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Irish National Association of General Practice and the National Association of Primary Care in the United Kingdom.