Resignations of Mary Gordon & Stella Ward

Sent on behalf of David Meates, Chief Executive

Last week I regretfully accepted the resignations of Mary Gordon, Executive Director of Nursing and Stella Ward, Chief Digital Officer.

Today I want to recognise the significant input both Mary and Stella have had into shaping the Canterbury Health System during their time with us.

Mary Gordon, Executive Director of Nursing, Exec Lead for Facilities

Mary was appointed as Executive Director of Nursing for Canterbury in September 2002. Mary has had a diverse clinical background with a generalist focus across acute medical, surgical and cardiology. Mary established the health promotion service on the West Coast working with health protection, public health nurses and rural nurses providing health education and health promotion campaigns.

In 1995, Mary was appointed as the nursing leader for the West Coast; whilst based in Greymouth she developed the nursing consultancy team that provided senior nursing leadership, professional direction and support to nurses throughout the West Coast region. Since then Mary has worked in senior nursing leadership roles in Hawke’s Bay, South Canterbury and Counties Manukau before returning to Canterbury.

Mary has been instrumental in bringing together nursing leaders from across the Canterbury health system in a united way over the past 18 years. She has been focused on ensuring a more integrated health system for the people at the centre of our care, and the development of nursing has been an integral part of this journey. Mary has built a strong culture of “Growing our own” and over the years has significantly increased the new graduate workforce. Advancing and enabling nurses across our region has ensured a vibrant and sustainable nursing workforce for the future.

Mary’s collaborative approach also has extended to the wider South Island within the alliancing model; Mary has chaired two of the South Island Alliance groups: the South Island Workforce Hub, and the South Island Quality & Safety Alliance.

Mary is a member of Nurse Executives of NZ, College of Nurses, Aotearoa, and both of the National Lead Directors of Nursing and the South Island Nurse Executives group. Mary is a highly respected colleague, valued across the nation for her wisdom and strategy and will be sorely missed by health professionals across the system.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the enormous work Mary has undertaken as the Executive Lead for Facilities Management. Mary has taken responsibility for leading both the repair strategy as well as the new build of Hagley Hospital which is the largest hospital build this country has ever experienced.

I acknowledge Mary’s outstanding contribution to the Canterbury health system.

Mary’s last day will be Friday 18 September. Before then we will be organising a farewell to allow those who wish to take the opportunity to say their goodbyes to Mary after 18 years with the DHB.

Becky Hickmott will be Acting Executive Director of Nursing when Mary leaves until someone is recruited to the permanent role.

Stella Ward, Chief Digital Officer, Canterbury & West Coast DHBs

Stella trained as a speech language therapist and has worked in the public health system, private practice, education and welfare. She has held executive leadership roles in a number of DHBs before starting in Canterbury in 2010. She held the position of Executive Director of Allied Health Technical & Scientific before moving into the position of Chief Digital Officer for both Canterbury & West Coast DHBs.

Stella’s strategic leadership and governance has ensured that current and future technology contributes to the transalpine vision of an integrated health system – with one system and one budget and standardised systems designed around the needs of people.

Stella holds a number of Executive Portfolios that include Te Papa Hauora (the Health Precinct) and Health Innovation (Via Innovations). She co-led with Ara the governance of the build and fit out of Manawa. She is also a Board member of the New Zealand Health Innovation Hub. She is a leader and advocate of innovation to accelerate smart ideas, products and services to improve health outcomes.

Stella is also the commercial relationship manager for the DHBs’ Strategic Partnerships with a number of multinational technology companies. She is highly regarded for her health care technology knowledge and has served as an advisor to many international companies and healthcare systems.

Over the years, we’ve learnt that every IT challenge is also a people challenge, so the first thing is inspiring people about where we’re going and how they can come with us on the journey and Stella has overseen a large number of projects designed to help people do their jobs better: from SI-PICs to Cortex, Celo and the Cloud Transformation - which is making computer services faster, more secure and reliable, while reducing costs. During her time leading and reinvigorating the Information Services Group, she’s established a culture of performance. She’s responsible for the Digital Health System vision and ISG’s Strategic and Operational plan including leading the largest procurement and implementation of e-health systems.

As Executive Director Allied Health for West Coast and Canterbury DHBs she led workforce development as well as service design for the services she was responsible for. As one of the executive clinical leaders she shared accountability and responsibility for quality and patient safety; research and professional development along with the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of Nursing. Stella was also chair of the West Coast Alliance Leadership team.

Like many of her executive colleagues Stella provided leadership in regional and national forums as Chair of the National Directors of Allied Health and lately Chair of National Data and Digital forum.

Stella’s passion for leading edge IT and innovation will be sorely missed, but I am grateful that our TransAlpine health system has benefited in so many ways from her knowledge and leadership over the past 10 years.

Stella’s last day at work will be Friday 30 October. Closer to the time we’ll let you know what the interim arrangements will be for cover for her areas of responsibility when she’s left. There will be opportunities to farewell Stella in Canterbury and on the Coast before the end of October.

Ngā mihi

David Meates, MNZM

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