Robin Whyte is the Chief Executive Officer at NQPHN. She has more than 20 years’ senior executive level experience and has worked in the primary care, hospital, community care, aged care, and disability sectors.
She has been a CEO for the Primary Health Network (PHN) and other primary health organisations for more than eleven years.
Robin is also an experienced Board Member and is passionate about place-based and consumer-centric approaches that build on local partnerships between government and industry, and that deliver holistic care.
Portfolio: Corporate Services
NQPHN's Corporate Services division is the enabler of our organisation, ensuring seamless operations, strategic alignment and effective communications.
With a dedicated focus on People and Culture, we prioritise the wellbeing of our workforce through effective human resource management processes and procedure.
The Strategic Operations unit drives the execution of our mission and objectives for each priority area to help the organisation achieve impactful outcomes. Administration support ensures the efficient day-to-day functioning, enabling our teams to concentrate on commissioning and codesigning vital healthcare services.
While effective communication plays a central role in conveying our initiatives and outcomes to staff, stakeholders, and the Department of Health and Aged Care.
Together, these components empower NQPHN to advance primary health care that's accessible, timely, high quality, and culturally safe throughout the region.
Ruth Azzopardi is the Executive Director for Health Services Commissioning at NQPHN.
Ruth is an experienced Health Service Director with skills in leadership, management, partnership development, quality improvement, service redesign, and delivering integrated health care services.
She has a clinical background as an occupational therapist working in rehabilitation and community health, and has spent more than 15 years in senior leadership, management, and quality improvement positions across primary health care, state government, and hospital settings.
Ruth’s experience includes working in executive level roles in large metropolitan health services in Victoria, at Medicare Local, and the Victorian Department of Health.
She has a strong commitment to delivering comprehensive and equitable primary healthcare and values the principles of equity, accessibility, efficiency, and evidenced-based and person-centred care.
Portfolio: Health Services Commissioning
Through the Health Services Commissioning (HSC) portfolio, NQPHN plays an important role as a leader in northern Queensland's health care system, driving meaningful change and shaping a service system that is well positioned to meet the changing needs of the people and communities across the region.
Following a strategic, evidence-based approach to planning and purchasing services, NQPHN commissions providers based on local priorities and needs.
The HSC portfolio covers key priority areas, as identified through the NQPHN Health Needs Assessment (HNA) 2022-2025, including Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs, Older Persons and Palliative Care, and Health Priorities including First Nations Health.
Karin is the Executive Director for Health System Integration and Innovation at NQPHN. She has more than 19 years' experience in the primary health care sector, commencing at the Divisions of General Practice in 2004.
Karin has experience across a number of primary health care areas including chronic and complex care management, education and workforce optimisation, and clinical data and quality improvement.
She is also experienced in implementing new models of care that support providers to improve individual and community health outcomes.
Karin is committed to making health services and systems integrated and person-centred across North Queensland.
Portfolio: Health System Integration and Innovation
The NQPHN Health Systems Integration and Innovation (HSII) directorate involves the provision of seamless and effective care that reflects each person’s health and social care needs.
In an environment of increasing demand and tighter resource allocation, HSII promotes efficiency and effectiveness across its five core programs: Data and Intelligence (including Innovation), Integration and Partnerships, Primary Care Engagement and Digital Enhancement, Primary Care Workforce Development, and Disaster Preparedness.
The remits of these programs ensure NQPHN has integrated reach to drive deliverables and outcomes with innovation and evidence.
Amanda is the Executive Director for Business Services at NQPHN. In this role, Amanda leads the Business Services Team to align NQPHN’s core business functions and enable the different departments within NQPHN to meet their goals.
Amanda has a Bachelor of Business from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), and a Masters in Business Administration from the Australian Institute of Management Australia.
She has also completed the Company Directors Course from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, carries a Certificate in Governance and Risk Assessment, and is an Accredited Change Manager.
With more than 10 years’ experience working at executive level in higher education related to health, Amanda’s experience has given her an exceptional awareness of the issues faced in rural and remote regions, and understands the importance of health workforce sustainability in regional, rural, and remote Australia.
Amanda is passionate about North Queensland and working in a role that has a positive impact on the community.
Portfolio: Business Services
The NQPHN Business Services portfolio covers the three office locations taking in the operational areas of finance, systems, technology, risk, workplace health and safety, auditing, and contracts and procurement.
The Business Services’ purpose is to optimise systems, procurement, risk, and finance capability to achieve operational capability, while enabling NQPHN to commission health care services initiatives to genuinely support the needs of North Queenslanders.
Highlights of the 2022-23 year include:
- implementation of Xero – Accounting system
- development of the Systems Roadmap
- Contributing to the SharePoint project
- ISO9001 (full accreditation with zero non-conformances).
