9:00 IST | BST

The Mater Misericordiae University Hospital Site Visit

Total Capacity: 35 Delegates

Hospital Site Visit Itinerary

9:00 AM – Welcome and Introduction

Brief overview of the hospital and transformation initiatives

9:30 AM – 12:00 PM – Rotating Group Tours

Delegates will be divided into small groups (8–10 people) and rotate through key clinical and innovation areas:

• StrokeLINK
  Empowering stroke patients through self-care education and support post-discharge
• Rapid Access / Prosper Programme
  Fast-track assessment for suspected prostate cancer and a holistic support programme for patients pre- and post-prostatectomy
• NHILU – National High-Level Isolation Unit
  A national facility for the management of high-risk infectious diseases
• Emergency Department Highlights:
  • Care to Wait: Real-time, transparent information to enhance the waiting experience
  • Peer Connect to Redirect: An innovative CNS-led service supporting people experiencing homelessness and addiction
  • Trauma Bay: Design-led improvements to optimise team coordination and patient flow in major trauma care

12:00 PM – Closing Session

• Visit to the Mater Transformation Hub, showcasing ongoing and completed quality improvement and innovation projects
• Opportunity for informal discussion and Q&A

12:30 PM – End of Site Visit

Dr Úna Cunningham

Úna is Head of Transformation at the Mater Hospital having established the office in 2013.

Úna’s area of special interest is collective leadership in teams. She completed her PhD as part of the Co-Lead Programme https://www.ucd.ie/collectiveleadership/ at University College Dublin (UCD) in 2021. Through this approach, she has developed a reputation for enabling teams to work across silos and hierarchies, building trust, embracing positive conflict and instilling the accountability and ownership that is fundamental to real and lasting change.

Úna guest lectures on transformational systems level change and team interventions at UCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She is also a Leadership Mentor with the Irish Management Institute. Her work has been published in BMC Health Services Research, BMC Medical Research Methodology, BMC Medical Education, BMJ Open and the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health.

Aileen Igoe

Originally an Architect, Aileen first entered the world of healthcare in 2011 when she was working with a design firm on a major hospital development at the Mater Hospital. She quickly became interested in the interdependence between spatial design and work systems. Recognising the potential in this space, Aileen undertook advanced studies in Lean Six Sigma Process Engineering with further training in Innovation and Leadership in Healthcare. She spent the next 10 years working with teams to deeply understand and fundamentally reconfigure systems and services in the healthcare sector.

In her current role as Lean and Systems Thinking Lead, she applies a systems and process lens to Mater Transformation’s improvement work and brings her years of design experience to bear to bring about sustainable, workable solutions that have the user at heart. As an Adjunct Associate Professor at UCD Health Systems, Aileen teaches and mentors on the Mater Lean Academy Process Improvement Programmes.

Siobhan Manning

Siobhan has been working in innovation in healthcare since 2011 when she managed the roll-out of the Productive Operating Theatre Programme at the Mater. In 2013 she joined Mater Transformation, ultimately becoming Lead for Service Innovation & Design.

Siobhan is passionate about the opportunities that emerge when people and ideas from different backgrounds come together to solve problems. In 2016, Siobhan piloted a collaboration with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) to explore what value design might add to Mater Transformation’s work. The collaboration has grown exponentially since then as healthcare teams recognise the value that design methodology brings through its strong focus on human factors, intuition, risk taking and creativity.

Siobhan’s interest in innovation in healthcare stems from diverse sources. On completion of a Masters in International Marketing, she worked with Enterprise Ireland in Silicon Valley California, supporting Irish tech start-ups in driving new business opportunities in the US market. She then returned to Ireland to train as a Speech Therapist and worked at the frontline of healthcare for 12 years before joining Mater Transformation full time in 2013.