Katharina Spiller
Metro South Health, Australia
Biography
Katharina Spiller works within the Nursing Practice Development Unit, with a focus on onboarding, workforce development, and clinical education. Her current published research was the first quantitative study exploring the development of nursing students through to their first year of practice as registered nurses, generating insights to inform undergraduate learning opportunities and transition to practice. She leads initiatives to align education with workforce needs, including orientation redesign and cross-site collaboration across Metro South Health, Australia. With a practical, systems-focused approach, Katharina is committed to strengthening the transition to practice and ensuring nurses are confident, capable, and well-supported from the outset of their careers.
Research Interest
A practice-ready nursing workforce is essential for safe, high-quality healthcare, with clinical reasoning central to effective and autonomous practice. Persistent concerns regarding graduate readiness suggest that development across key professional domains may not progress uniformly during pre-registration education or early employment. Increasingly, these challenges are viewed as part of a developmental trajectory rather than abrupt exposure to practice realities. Some aspects of professional performance consolidate earlier, while others mature more gradually as responsibility increases. Understanding how practice readiness develops across the student-to-graduate transition can inform educational alignment and better guide progression into independent practice.