Kim Dougall is of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa and Scottish descent.
From a young age, Kim aspired to be a nurse and graduated in 1993 as a Registered Nurse. She has spent the last 30 years working in the health and disability sector, specialising in mental health, addiction, and public health, covering clinical and leadership roles. Her passion has always been working to improve the health and well-being of Māori, with a particular interest in working with rangatahi and whānau.
In 2019, Kim decided that she wanted to contribute strategically at a systems level to affect the required changes to achieve equity and improve Māori health. So, she transitioned into a national office role as a Quality Improvement Advisor for the Health Quality and Safety Commission. In that role, she worked on quality improvement projects in primary care and in the Māori health outcomes team. Kim was a co-author of the paper Whakakotahi: Co-creating Quality Improvement Capability with Primary. The mahi found that expertise exists within the primary health care system, and partnerships and relationships are key for change.
She then became a Principal Advisor for Te Hiringa Hauora, the Health Promotion Agency. During this time, she worked in the Te Tiriti team in a role that supported the organisation in building the capability to embed Te Tiriti into health promotion approaches. Her role included partner relationship management, organisational leadership, marketing and change management.
Kim is the General Manager of Public and Population Health for Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. This role involves providing strategic and operational leadership for the public and population health team that focuses on health promotion, illness prevention, and protection from harm for populations. This work includes influencing operating models in the health system by prioritising whānau voice and capability to drive the design and delivery of health services in Aotearoa, better meeting the needs of Māori.
Kim is a strong advocate of whānau ora and believes in the highest potential of her people to achieve oranga and believes that this begins with how we value and treat each other working within health, “our biggest resources are our people, and we must strive to be the change that we want to see”.
Links:
Whakakotahi: Co-creating quality improvement capability with primary
