Allied Health Insights Vol.2, No.32: Leadership and Career Transition with Donna Markham OAM
In this edition of Allied Health Insights
Donna Markham OAM has two pieces of advice for AHPs considering a “life after allied health” career transition: trust yourself, and do it before you think you’re ready.
Donna is a key leader in allied health who held Chief Allied Health Officer positions at Monash Health and Safer Care Victoria, before making the move to entrepreneurship.
In our interview, we discuss the aspects of Donna’s clinical career that prepared her for allied health leadership and what that means to her: “Leadership in allied health means influencing change. It means advocating for the profession. It means helping others understand what we do and recognise the value and the unique contribution that we bring to the communities that we serve.”
She shares her experiences as CAHO of Safer Care Victoria at the height of COVID, and some of the standout moments from that period, particularly in terms of strengthening relationships with the private sector.
Donna goes into detail about what ultimately made her decide to pivot from her allied health leadership role into entrepreneurship, how she managed uncertainty, and the transferrable skills that helped her along the way.
Launching HealthWork Mapping
HealthWork Mapping provides government, peak bodies and other organisations with mapping tools and workforce data to facilitate optimal healthcare delivery and planning.
Our geospatial mapping provides unique insights into the nexus where population need for allied health services meets allied health professional supply, using our novel algorithmic Allied Health Index of Need. Each profession-specific Allied Health Index of Need synthesises key drivers of population need for a particular allied health profession’s services into an intuitive metric, transcending traditional proxies for population need which can obscure the real picture. Overlain with workforce supply to the Statistical Area 3 level and provided in an interactive dashboard or report, our mapping products support organisations to make data-driven decisions on the commissioning and/or deployment of allied health services.
We also offer an extensive suite of health workforce surveys that delve into the perspectives, experiences, and needs of health professionals. We can help you illuminate and understand the realities of working in your healthcare organisation, aiding you to make targeted, evidence-based decisions to improve workforce attraction, morale and retention, and the quality of care.
Find out how HealthWork Mapping can help to drive strategic health workforce planning for your organisation.
