James Pownall | Chief Digital Innovation Lead, Royal Children's Hospital
The Royal Children's Hospital

James leads digital innovation at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, driving applied AI and digital health strategy across the Parkville biomedical precinct in partnership with RMH, Peter Mac, the Royal Women's Hospital, and MCRI. He specialises in applied AI systems, hyperautomation, and the translation of strategy into shipped product. Over the past several years he has designed and deployed clinical AI and automation platforms that have generated multi-million dollar impacts across Victorian health services - optimising revenue, eliminating low-value work, and returning capacity to frontline clinicians. Previously Director of Digital Innovation at Northern Health, James serves on the Hospitals Victoria Expert Advisory Panel, and continues to shape how Australian hospitals adopt generative AI safely and at scale.