After 11 years at the helm of the Statewide Maternity and Neonatal Clinical Network, Chair Professor Rebecca Kimble will hand over the reins to incoming co-chairs Dr Peter Ganter and Ms Amanda Ostrenski.
Director in CEQ’s Healthcare Improvement Unit Melleesa Cowie said Professor Rebecca Kimble had been a strong and passionate leader of the SMNCN since 2010. “Her sustained and collaborative approach has enabled the network to play a pivotal role in providing clinical leadership on key strategic health system improvements,” she said.
“As Chair, Rebecca always strived to ensure broad consultation with all stakeholders across Queensland acknowledging the diversity of services and populations. Rebecca has shown passion for improving equity of care and access to maternity and neonatal services across Queensland by forming and maintaining strong partnerships with rural and remote clinical leaders and consumers.”
Rebecca has been instrumental in the development of the Rural Maternity Taskforce and will continue to advocate for equity of care and access as she sits as the co-chair for the Rural Maternity Implementation Oversight Committee (RMIOC). Melleesa said importantly, Rebecca engages continuously with community voices and over her 11 years as chair has been successful in bringing a strong consumer voice into network decisions. “This is evident in the large consumer participation present in statewide maternity forums and the strong relationships forged with groups such as Health Consumers Queensland.”
During the past 11 years Rebecca has led the development of numerous system reforms and statewide quality and safety initiatives for maternity and neonatal services. “Because of the hard work of the SMNCN under her leadership, clinicians now have access to a range of evidence based maternity and neonatal decision support tools, guidelines and resources to standardise the approach to and safety of maternity and neonatal care across Queensland.” Some of these include:
- The Queensland Clinical Guidelines (QCG) program - an internationally recognised program with one guideline downloaded every five minutes from across Australia and the world.
- Improvements in perinatal clinical information systems including the Pregnancy Health Record, Queensland Maternity Early Warning Tools (Q-MEWT), Intrapartum suite of records, ieMR Maternity module and ieMR Fetal Link.
- Oversight of statewide clinician education programs including the Neonatal Resus and Stabilisation programs, the Imminent Birth Education program, standardisation of Retinopathy of Prematurity screening and the Syphilis in Pregnancy guideline implementation.
Most recently, Rebecca played a lead role in setting the strategic direction through the COVID-19 pandemic for maternity services both in Queensland and at the national level.
Under Rebecca's leadership, network membership has grown to more than 3,000 members and has improved the experience of having a baby for Queensland parents and their families.
“On behalf of everyone at CEQ, SMNCN members past and present, and indeed every woman who has birthed at a Queensland public facility – thank you Prof. Kimble.”
For more information on the Statewide Maternity and Neonatal Clinical Network visit their website.
