About Donna Foley

Donna Foley BSc (Nursing), PG (Occ Hlth Saf), MBA (Health Serv Mgmt) is the Founder and Managing Director of Health Business Solutions.

Donna Foley is a Registered Nurse, health service manager and experienced healthcare consultant with more than 20 years’ experience across clinical services, health service management, accreditation, governance, risk, quality and safety.

Through Health Business Solutions, Donna works with healthcare and human service organisations to translate complex regulatory and accreditation requirements into practical systems that work in day-to-day service delivery. 

Her focus is not simply on achieving compliance, but on helping organisations establish sustainable governance, quality and risk management processes that improve safety, strengthen accountability and support better care.

Donna has extensive experience in the design, implementation and review of clinical governance and safety and quality management systems.

Her work includes accreditation readiness, risk management, quality improvement, workforce competency, digital optimization, clinical oversight, regulatory compliance and executive reporting.

Her experience as a health service manager and accreditation auditor has given her the skills to assist health service in implementing system that operate effectively in practice. Donna has undertaken assurance work across health and disability services and has worked extensively with national healthcare quality, safeguarding and management system standards.

Prior to consulting, Donna held senior roles in healthcare risk, safety and quality management, including experience within major health services.

Today, Donna has a particular interest in highly regulated clinical sectors including medical imaging and radiology, assisted reproductive technology and IVF, aged care and disability services.
Her work with aged care and NDIS providers includes clinical governance, quality and safeguarding systems, nursing governance, clinical risk management, workforce competency, incident management, internal audit and preparation for regulatory assessment.

Donna also brings strong expertise in enterprise risk, governance and management systems, including ISO-aligned approaches to quality, risk, occupational health and safety and organisational assurance. 

This broader governance experience enables her to work with boards, executives and operational teams to connect regulatory compliance with organisational risk, strategy and service delivery.
A key feature of Donna’s approach is making compliance practical, woring with organisations to integrate governance, risk and quality into everyday business processes.

Donna is particularly skilled at identifying the gap between ‘having a policy’ and being able to demonstrate that the policy is working. She assists organisations to build a clear evidence trail.

She works collaboratively with boards, executives, clinicians, practice managers, quality teams and frontline staff to develop systems that are proportionate to the organisation and practical to maintain.

Donna’s objective is straightforward: to help healthcare providers manage risk, maintain accreditation, strengthen clinical governance and deliver safe, high-quality services — without making compliance unnecessarily complicated.

Through Health Business Solutions, Donna supports organisations ranging from individual practices and specialist clinical services through to multi-site healthcare and human service providers.

Her philosophy is that good governance and accreditation should do more than satisfy a regulator. When designed properly, they provide organisations with the structure, information and assurance needed to make better decisions, improve services and deliver safer care.