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John Rasa was the worthy recipient of this year's ultimate College achievement award - the Gold Medal for 2011. The announcement was made at this year's Annual General Meeting held in Rotorua and he is seen here responding to the citation alongside CEO, Daryl Sadgrove.
Assoc. Prof. John Rasa has been a very active College member since 1978 and has made a significant contribution to the College and the health sector in NSW and Victoria and more lately at a National level.
He has a strong commitment to life long learning and has demonstrated this by initiating programs which the College has conducted for the benefit of its members. These programs have included mentoring and leadership development programs.
John has occupied senior management and leadership positions in two states within the health sector and has always had the highest concern for patient safety as well for high levels of quality of patient care in his role as a senior executive in a number of health services.
He has a high profile in the industry and is well known by senior bureaucrats in a number of state and federal government departments and is also well known by ministers at the state and commonwealth level.
His work whilst President of the Board of Whitehorse TAFE gave him broader exposure and enhanced his reputation outside his immediate area of work.
Assoc. Prof. Rasa has recently been appointed as the CEO of General Practice Victoria and as such is taking a leading role in the establishment of Medicare Locals as part of the Commonwealth Government’s major health reform agenda. His considerable leadership and negotiation skills are being used to implement the reform agenda for the benefit of patients and the community. Although this work has not been completed John has already shown his ability to work with groups who have quite disparate and sometimes diametrically opposed positions to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome for the benefit of patient care.
Prior to his appointment to General Practice Victoria, John was engaged as a consultant and project director by the Victorian Department of Health to lead major change in centralising foodservices meal production for metropolitan health services in Melbourne.
Again, Johns’ capacity to work with, and drive stakeholders to a common shared outcome came to the fore. As an outcome of this project two central production kitchens were established along with a number of finishing kitchens within metropolitan health services. Pre and post satisfaction surveys demonstrated that not only were project cost outcomes delivered, patient satisfaction with meals was improved. As an extension of this project John played a significant role in the development of nutritional guidelines and food service satisfaction surveys with relevance for all Victorian Health Services. John also played a direct role in having foodservices portion control packing changes to the benefit of aged care client.
John’s leadership style is transformational and inclusive. He is very much a team player and takes considerable time and trouble to nurture and develop staff. He works collaboratively and collegiately with stakeholder to achieve a desired outcome.
He has been particularly active in mentoring management trainees and has used experiential learning techniques to assist in their development.
John demonstrates his commitment to life long learning by taking an active role in his own personal development and in this way demonstrates to others the value of life long learning.
John became a Victorian State Branch Councillor in 2000 and was President in 2001 and 2002.
Prior to this John was on the NSW State Branch Council
He is presently a Board member and is Senior Vice President of the College Board.
He was Victorian Fellow of the Year in 2004
He was appointed Chief Examiner for the College in 2008