Jane Merkley

Executive Vice President, Chief Nurse Executive & Chief Operating Officer

Jane is a nurse executive with expertise in leading strategic change initiatives in major Toronto hospitals. She has over three decades of experience spanning clinical, administrative, executive, and professional practice roles with a focus on delivering the highest quality care across 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 & Laboratory Medicine), Academic Professional Practice, Patient Safety, Quality and Enterprise Risk Management, and Operational Readiness (Phase 3A redevelopment project).  Her expanded role also includes Information Technology, emphasizing the importance of ensuring our 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 to ensure optimal alignment and performance outcomes. 

Jane leads ambitious, strategic, clinical, administrative, and academic change initiatives such as our Quality Aims and Academic Practice Strategy including the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® that is transforming care across Sinai Health. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she has also 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 function.  In these roles she has 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 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.  For her earlier work as an academic practice leader, Jane was awarded the Award of Merit for Excellence in Nursing Administration from Sigma Theta Tau, Lambda Pi Chapter.

Jane is an Adjunct Professor with the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto. She earned her Bachelor of Nursing at Laurentian University and Master of Science at the University of Toronto. Jane also has a clinical specialization in Neuroscience Nursing through McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute.