NT

President

Prof Leonard Notaras AO FCHSM CHE

Vice President

Vacant

Treasurer

Ms Lisa Vermuelen AFCHSM 

Secretariat

Justine Glover FCHSM, CHE

Branch Councillors

Allison Grierson FCHSM, CHE
Liza Houghton FCHSM, CHE
Pieter Walker FCHSM, CHE
Linda Lukitsch MCHSM

Professor Len Notaras AO

FCHSM, CHE, FRACMA (Hon), Dsc (CDU), DUniv (FUSA)

Professor Len Notaras AO is the Executive Director and founder of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC). For more than 16 years he also held the positions of Medical Superintendent at Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH), General Manager and Principal Medical Consultant, and served as Chief Executive of the Northern Territory Department of Health from 2014-2016. Professor Notaras has a long history in disaster response having coordinated the RDH response to the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the evacuation and retrieval following the assassination attempt on then President of Timor-Leste Dr Jose Ramos-Horta and events at Ashmore Reef in 2009, as well as Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) deployments for more than a decade. 

In 2019, Professor Notaras was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his distinguished service to medical administration in the Northern Territory and significant contribution to Australia’s COVID-19 pandemic response. Professor Notaras holds degrees in Medicine, Law and Arts (Hons) and Commerce and has Masters in History and Hospital Management.

Professor Notaras was appointed as a government representative on the ACHS Board in 2002 and was Vice President from 2015 to 2017. He was elected ACHS President in May 2017. He has also been on the Board of Directors for ACHS International since 2009. He was also conferred Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA) in October 2022. He is currently President of the ACHSM NT branch. 
 

Lisa Vermeulen

AFCHSM

Lisa Vermeulen is the Director of Nursing & Midwifery Population Primary Health Care. Lisa is an experienced director and registered nurse with over 30 years of service within the public health system. She has extensive experience in strategic and operational management, leading health responses in emergency care and infection prevention and control.

Lisa has a skill set in emergency and primary health care, disaster response, psychiatry and infection prevention & control. She is a subject matter expert in Disaster response, Outbreak response and Humanitarian intervention. Lisa is appointed to a Clinical Associate Professor position at Charles Darwin University and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Melbourne University for their Disaster coursework.

She is known for building high performing team in resource poor environments and passionate in building and establishing workforce across remote health area services to improve social determinates of health and improving health outcomes.

Justine Glover

FCHSM CHE

Justine Glover is a Registered Nurse with over 28 years’ experience working across Top End Health in nursing, administrative and management positions, with 17 years in Senior Executive Officer positions.

Justine held the position of Alderman City of Darwin for 8 years. She is currently the Palmerston Regional Hospital Operations Manager, Non Clinical. She has been a member of the ACHSM NT Branch since 2021.
 

Allison Grierson

FCHSM CHE

Allison is currently Director, Strategic Partnerships and Growth, Faculty of Health, Charles Darwin University.

Originally from a nursing background, Allison has extensive Executive experience including Regional Executive Director, Top End of NT Health, Executive Director, Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospitals and portfolio experience in health policy, strategy and planning, funding and performance. Allison has been a NT Branch Council member since 2019.
 

Liza Houghton

FCHSM CHE

Liza has been a NT Branch Council member since 2021, the NT Mentoring Program lead, and a Fellowship Study Group Coordinator and Examiner.

Liza facilitates Applied Clinical Governance training for the Australasian Institute of Clinical Governance and is a non-executive Director on the NT PHN Board.

Since 2017, Liza has worked as a Director in her own business, Liza Houghton Consultancy as a governance specialist, working in partnership with emerging health leaders to strengthen their skills. This includes supporting the transition to community control for Aboriginal Health Services.

With a nursing background Liza is passionate about connecting people across the health system through facilitation and coaching focusing on strengthening health leadership.

Pieter Walker

FCHSM CHE

Pieter Walker has had over 30 years of healthcare and consulting experience in strategy and governance, quality improvement/redesign, change management and leadership training, across the public and private health sectors in Australia and Internationally. 

He has led and facilitated hundreds of performance improvement workshops and projects with healthcare executives and teams using data to drive improvements in organisational culture, quality, safety and performance, whilst trying to make change engaging, sustainable, and enjoyable.  

He was the Victorian Study Coordinator in 2020 before moving to the Northern Territory where he has served as one of the NT Study Coordinators and Branch Councillors since 2021.

Linda Lukitsch

MCHSM

Linda Lukitsch is a born and bred Territorian. Linda has been working alongside clinicians in NT Health since 2002 supporting alignment of digital technologies with business requirements. Early roles in Linda’s career include training, system design, project management and support of NT Health’s core clinical systems.

Linda is driven by a passion to enable healthcare systems and in particular frontline staff in the NT to perform efficiently through the integration of user centred digital technologies, which facilities delivery of safe, responsive and kind patient centred care to all Territorians.