Jane Merkley is a nurse executive with expertise in leading strategic change initiatives in major Toronto hospitals. She has more than three decades of experience spanning clinical, administrative, executive and professional practice roles with a focus on delivering the highest quality care in acute care, complex, and rehabilitative care settings.
As Sinai Health’s most senior nursing executive and operational lead, Jane oversees an extensive, multi-site portfolio encompassing Clinical Operations (including Pharmacy, Medical Imaging, and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), Academic Professional Practice, Patient Safety, Quality and Enterprise Risk Management and Operational Readiness for the Renew Sinai Phase 3A redevelopment. Her expanded role also includes Information Technology, emphasizing the importance of ensuring Sinai Health’s technology enterprise and operations are integrated and aligned with clinical care and quality. Likewise, the financial sustainability and operational performance functions are positioned within this portfolio to bring teams together under a single point of accountability and to ensure optimal alignment and performance outcomes.
Jane’s leadership of ambitious strategic, clinical, administrative and academic change initiatives, such as the Quality Aims and Academic Practice Strategy and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program, is transforming care across Sinai Health. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she provided system-level leadership by co-leading the Toronto Region COVID-19 Hospital Operations Table and the COVID-19 Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Incident Management System (IMS) planning. In these roles, she led the development of evidence-based guidelines to support the coordination of hospital operations, expanded bed capacity, and mitigation of COVID-19 nosocomial transmission and hospital outbreaks.
Prior to assuming her current role at Sinai Health, Jane was the Vice President of Patient Services and Programs, and Chief of Professional Affairs and Chief Nurse Executive for Bridgepoint Active Healthcare. She also previously served as the Director of Nursing Practice and Education at St. Michael’s Hospital where she held several progressive positions including Clinical Leader and Manager for the Trauma and Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit.
Jane is the recipient of the Award of Merit for Excellence in Nursing Administration from the Lambda Pi chapter of Sigma Theta Tau for her earlier work as an academic practice leader.
Jane earned her Bachelor of Nursing at Laurentian University and Master of Science at the University of Toronto. She also has a clinical specialization in Neuroscience Nursing through McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute. Jane is an Adjunct Professor with the University of Toronto's Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.
