DrPenelope (Penny) Casey

My goal: Lead and publish research that improves patient safety and the quality of care, as aligned with the strategic directions of IHT, QPS and Eastern Health.

I am an experienced nurse (35 years), nurse educator (20 years) and completed my PhD (Monash University) in February 2025. I have a deep understanding of nursing care in hospitals (Students, Graduate Nurses, Enrolled Nurses, RNs), and am passionate about nurse education, delirium and cognition care, and reducing clinical risk and harm in older persons.

Early Career: 

I graduated as an RN from the Royal Melbourne Hospital in the late 1980s, after which I pursued my initial interest in infectious diseases &
HIV/AIDS (Fairfield Hospital; Grad Dip Nursing Infectious Diseases, Victoria University of Technology) before moving into neurosurgical and high-dependancy unit nursing at The Austin Hospital. During my time there I held the positions of RN and ANUM, and completed a Bachelor of Nursing (Honours- First Class, La Trobe University)- Thesis Neurological Assessment in Languages Other Than English (NALOTE).

Mid Career:

In the late 1990s- 2022 I held a range of nursing education positions at The Alfred, RMIT, The Royal District Nursing Service, Ringwood Private
Hospital, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Eastern Health. Teaching specialties included Basic Life Support, High Dependancy Unit Nursing, Neurosurgical Nursing, Neurological Nursing, and Surgical Nursing. During this time I completed a Bachelor of Education (LaTrobe University) and Certificate IV in Training and Adult Assessment (Box Hill TAFE). I concluded my Clinical Nurse Educator role at Eastern Health (2022) with the successful launch of the Clinical Governance Unit for the Masters of Business Administration, devised in partnership with Deakin
University (School of Business) and Eastern Health.

In 2025, I completed my PhD with Monash University (part-time) with a research focus on improving delirium recogniton, response and documentation by nurses. During candidature, I was seconded to Safer Care Victoria to advise on the design and conduct of the Victoria-wide point prevalence survey of delirium (2018).

And now...

Now I work as a Research Fellow at the Deakin University Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research (QPS) - Eastern Health Partnership. Here I am actively engaged in supporting reseach (field experts, early career researchers and higher degree research students) and driving research and publication of research in delirium care, to align with the NSQHC Standards, the stratgic goals of Eastern Health and the goals of QPS in the Institute for Health Transformation. 

Looking forward to connecting with you over shared research or teaching interests!