About Nichole

I became a nurse for one simple reason: I’m endlessly curious about people. I’ve always wanted to understand what makes us tick — not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and behaviourally. That curiosity started at the micro level, one patient at a time. But it didn’t take long before I zoomed out and started asking bigger questions: How do humans function inside systems that are constantly shifting? How do we communicate, adapt, and make decisions when the stakes are high and the pressure never lets up?

That curiosity became my fuel.

I spent years in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, first as a Registered Nurse and then as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. In that role, I wasn’t just caring for patients — I was coaching teams, leading change, solving problems, and asking the questions no one else was asking. I was also completing my PhD in Health Quality through Queen’s University because I wanted to understand healthcare from the inside out and the system level down.

My thesis, “Medication Safety Following Electronic Health Record (EHR) Implementation,” was inspired by lived experience. I helped roll out an EHR in real time — the wins, the challenges, the gaps, the workarounds, all of it. And in 2019, I took that curiosity global, completing my PhD internship at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) in Sydney. That summer changed everything. I worked with world leaders in complexity science and resilience engineering, and it completely reframed how I see safety, improvement, and human performance.

That systems-level lens — grounded in resilience, curiosity, and real-world clinical experience — is the foundation of every project I lead, every team I teach, every keynote I deliver, and every strategy I help organizations build. My work today is about helping healthcare teams think differently, act boldly, and create change that actually sticks.

Because when we understand how people and systems really work, we can build safer, smarter, more human healthcare.

Thanks for visiting my page! I know we can do great work together.

Warmly,