Lifetime of careers leads to careers of a lifetime for these HHS chiefs
Maybe you’re looking for the career of a lifetime. Or perhaps you crave variety, and want a lifetime of careers. Both options are possible at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS), as these three leaders show by the career paths they followed to their current leadership positions as practice chiefs.
Hamilton Health Sciences has seven practice chiefs in total, with Janny Proba, Jennifer Lounsbury and Mark Brown focusing on the organization as a whole while the other four chiefs oversee specific programs.
Proba and Lounsbury are both nurses who started their careers caring for patients and moved into education and management roles before becoming chiefs. Lounsbury is chief nursing information officer and Proba is chief nursing officer. Brown, the chief of health professional practice, is a doctor of pharmacy who took on leadership roles because he wanted to be more involved in decisions being made involving pharmacy care.
Practice chiefs work together with staff and leadership across HHS to introduce, develop, support and maintain best practices for nurses and other health-care professionals like respiratory therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, registered dietitians, social workers, psychologists, speech language pathologists and other disciplines. This includes ensuring HHS standards and provincial regulations are being met, along with guidelines from professional regulatory bodies like colleges that govern health-care clinicians.
Janny Proba, chief nursing officer
“I wanted to be a chief because it’s a role that combines my love of nursing practice, education, leadership and quality improvement.”
Even as a nursing student, Janny Proba knew she wanted to someday work in a chief’s role. Every career decision she made – from her first job caring for patients to later roles in nursing education and management – led to her current position.
Janny Proba, chief nursing officer
“I wanted to be a chief because it’s a role that combines my love of nursing practice, education, leadership and quality improvement,” says Proba, whose position covers nursing practice at HHS including policy development, legislative requirements and nursing professional practice oversight.
Proba joined HHS 20 years ago as a nurse caring for cancer patients, and over the years her career path focused largely on oncology, palliative care and vascular access. In her pursuit of a chief’s position, she returned to school to earn a master’s degree and will attain her doctorate in educational leadership in the fall.
“In a large hospital system like HHS, there are lots of opportunities to grow your position in multiple ways,” says Proba, who is very involved in the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology, a national organization aimed at a oncology nursing excellence through practice, education, research, and leadership. She’s also the president of the Canadian Vascular Access Association, a national organization promoting excellence in vascular access and infusion therapy.
Mark Brown, chief of health professional practice
“Our leaders are very good at recognizing potential in team members and providing them with opportunities for successful change.”
Mark Brown’s role as chief parallels Proba’s, with his portfolio focused on regulated and unregulated health professionals other than nurses. This currently includes over 15 professions and the number is growing. In order to work as a regulated health-care professional in Ontario, a person must be a member of their profession’s regulatory college.
Mark Brown, chief of health professional practice
Brown’s job, like all HHS chiefs, includes knowing each college’s regulations and requirements, along with HHS’ policies and procedures, so that staff can work to their full potential within these guidelines.
The scope of what staff are allowed to do by their colleges, and their roles at HHS aren’t always the same, says Brown. “For example, there may be opportunities to optimize their role, where there’s overlap.”
Brown is a pharmacist with specialized training in hematology and oncology. He worked as a front-line pharmacist in cancer care for 10 years. During that time, he became increasingly interested in decisions being made at the operational level that have an impact on pharmacy care.
This led him to take on a leadership role looking at drug use across HHS, as well as a management role before becoming a chief.
Brown credits HHS leaders with helping him grow his career. “I wasn’t expected to enter new roles with the full set of skills and experience,” he says. “Instead, I was given the room and support to grow into these roles. Our leaders are very good at recognizing potential in team members and providing them with opportunities for successful change.”
Jennifer Lounsbury, chief nursing information officer
“As a nurse with HHS, know that you can build your career in whatever direction you want to go.”
Jennifer Lounsbury started her career in Toronto caring for cancer patients. She’s committed to lifelong learning and was keen to explore opportunities in education, research and leadership. This passion for professional growth led her to the Grand River Cancer Centre in Kitchener, where she moved up the ranks to become a director before joining to HHS six years ago as chief of interprofessional practice for oncology.
Jennifer Lounsbury, chief nursing information officer
When the pandemic struck in 2020, Lounsbury discovered a new passion – virtual care that uses leading-edge digital technology to remotely monitor patients recovering at home.
This work sparked her interest in research, by connecting her to research teams involved in studying how patients could be supported in their homes through virtual care and remote at-home monitoring.
Her current role, chief nursing information officer, was created in 2022 when HHS launched Epic, a new, state-of-the-art electronic platform to manage all patients’ health-care data.
“This was really the turning point for me, in terms of a career that focused on integrating technology into nursing practice,” says Lounsbury, whose work focuses on digital health and virtual care models for nursing across HHS. “I really enjoy this position because it’s strategic, innovative work.”
Lounsbury encourages new nurses is to embrace learning opportunities and new experiences, and surround themselves with mentors. “As a nurse with HHS, know that you can build your career in whatever direction you want to go.”
