The Board of Patients First is pleased to announce their newest member, Dr Sarah Clarke. Sarah has 20 years’ experience in the health sector and is a dual trained specialist in Rural Hospital Medicine and Urgent Care, with experience working across general practice and hospital medicine.

Sarah is based in Canterbury, though she has part-time and locum roles in other regions, and is currently working towards her Masters in Public Health.

We must put our patient at the centre of health care.

When Sarah joined the health sector (in training) straight from school, she “was motivated by a mixture of fascination for the human body (and mind) and a desire to help people. Over the years I have become more motivated by the latter (helping people) and discovered that I can achieve the greatest gains by helping the systems that we work within.”

She has long held an interest in systems and information technology and is passionate about ensuring that systems support people to work as effectively as possible. She says that she sees “Patients First as being in a unique position working ‘in the commons’ to find the pressure points for the sector, and to meaningfully contribute to their solutions. It will be my privilege to be a part of that.”

Sarah’s career has included a wide variety of clinical encounters across many locations, including the Pacific Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, but also exposure to clinical leadership, service quality improvement, and information technology. She also has considerable experience in governance, including medical executive, board membership and chairing of local and national organisations.

Sarah cares deeply about patient outcomes and strongly feels that “we must put our patient at the centre of health care.” In particular, she believes that providing better systems to utilise data and support patients and clinicians will create time to care for patients, while decreasing health disparities and improving equity of access and outcomes for people.

On joining the Patients First Board, Sarah said she is “looking forward to using my clinical experience and sector connections to guide the Patients First team in improving the health consumer experience one project at a time.”

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