Dr Shannon Nott is the Rural Director of Medical Services for Western NSW Local Health District. Through this role, he oversees 35 rural and remote hospitals and multipurpose services across western NSW. Shannon also works for the Royal Flying Doctors Service (South Eastern Section) as a retrieval and primary care Rural Generalist. Shannon also works as a GP Anaesthetist at Dubbo Base Hospital. Through his work with Western NSW LHD, Shannon led the implementation of the region’s vCare critical care hub, a 24/7 virtual support and logistics centre designed to assist rural and remote communities. Shannon has also led the creation of Australia’s first Virtual Rural Generalist Service as well as the development of a Virtual Clinical Pharmacy Service for rural communities. Following being awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship in 2014, Shannon has been regarded as an expert in the field of virtual care. In 2020, this expertise was recognised when he was appointed as the clinical lead for the Virtual Care Community of Practice for NSW Health, coordinating the virtual care COVID-19 response for the state. He was also appointed as the inaugural Clinical Director of the Virtual Care Accelerator, a multi-agency business unit embedded within NSW Health to advance virtual care across the state. This role has now transitioned under the NSW Ministry of Health where Dr Nott has been appointed as the Virtual Care Medical Advisor for NSW Health. Dr Nott has also supported the progression of research in both rural and remote communities and virtual care. Most recently, Dr Nott has been Chief Investigator for the Translational Research Grant: “A stepped wedge trial of efficacy and scalability of a virtual clinical pharmacy service (VCPS) in rural and remote NSW health facilities,” as well as the COVID-19 Research Grant: “Evaluation of the Virtual Rural Generalist Service.” Through these roles, Dr Nott has led large mixed methods studies in real-world virtual care projects utilising a broad array of clinical and heath information including ED, inpatients, incident reporting and patient experience datasets. Shannon is also a member of the World Health Organization’s Roster of Digital Health Experts, sits on Rural Council of the World Congress of Family Physicians (WONCA) and was previously the NSW Rural Representative to the Federal AMA. As a clinical leader in NSW, Shannon sits on the NSW Health COVID Clinical Council and is an advisor to the Rural Doctors Network.

Professor Meredith Makeham is the Associate Dean for Community and Primary Health Care, Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney. She is responsible for their Primary Health Care strategy which recognises better use of digital health technology as a key pillar of Primary Health Care reform. She leads the University’s Community and Primary Health care Network, which connects consumers, clinicians and academics in this field. Meredith has held numerous patient safety related advisory roles for government and other organisations, including the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. She was also the Chief Medical Adviser for the Australian Digital Health Agency from 2016-2020 and part of the team who led the opt-out system reform of My Health Record. Meredith has had over 20 years of experience as a general practitioner. She practices with MQ Health in the North of Sydney, where she supervises registrars, residents and medical students. She is an advocate of better connected care and empowering people with access to their own health information.

Bishma Jayathilaka is a clinical pharmacist and Chief Pharmacy Information Officer at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. After completing a Bachelor of Pharmacy in New Zealand, she completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Melbourne and an internship at the WHO Headquarters Department of Health Innovation. Through her clinical work, Bishma has maintained an interest in cancer having worked in paediatric and adult cancer services and in remote, rural, and metropolitan health services in Australia and New Zealand. Bishma is currently completing a PhD through the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology at the University of Melbourne. Her research is focused on risk prediction of immune-related adverse events and aims to identify and predict adverse event occurrence in real-world population data using data science methodologies. Bishma is a key, collaborative leader in digital health strategies to optimise and develop all aspects of medications management in the Parkville EMR (Epic Systems).

Dimity Pond is a GP in clinical practice in Berowra, NSW. She has Honorary Professor positions at Western Sydney, Tasmania, and the University of New England. Her research has been mainly in the field of aged care, in particular dementia. It focusses on improving care for older people, including medications and transitional care. She has recently been the clinical lead for a Northern Sydney Primary Health Network project for GPs around Quality Improvement in Dementia Care.