On 5 December 2011 330 health researchers and policy makers gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide for the HSRAANZ's 7th Health Services and Policy Research Conference.

A full programme from the conference is available -  2011 Program.pdf.

Posters - posters.pdf

Oral papers - abstracts  - Abstracts.mht

Plenary Presentations

Chris Baggoley - You wouldn't be dead for quids.

David Ben-Tovim - Public hospitals and the tragedy of the healthcare commons: close encounters of the third kind.

Jefferey Braithwaite- And the Oscar for innovation goes to:  a criiss system comparison of successes and failures

Tony Blakley - Data planning equality and cost effective health services: an approach from New Zealand

Michelle Foster - Contributions of Qualitative Research to health services research and policy

Robyn McDermott - Cross jurisdictional data: linkage and policy relevant research:ethics, legislation and governance in SA and the NT

Jon Nicoll - Better or Bigger: How should we organise emergency care

The Hon John Hill MP, Minister for Health and Ageing, SA - Welcome Reception Address

Suzanne Hill - Providing incentives through payment recommendations

Elizabeth A McGlynn - Are we making progress in narrowing the quality of care chasm in the US.

Anthony Scott - Using financial incentives to improve health systems performance

Cathy Schoen - Primary care for 21 Centurey high performance Health Systems

On 23 November in Canberra the Association co-hosted with the Centre for Mental Health Research a workshop on successful health grant applications. 

Presentations from the event are available below.

Programme

Introduction - Chair Rosalie Viney - Associate Professor of Health Economics, UTS and Deputy Director the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation.  

NHMRC Expert – Clive Morris  - NHMRC's Head of Research Group 

Grant Review Panel Experts – Helen Christensen (Professor and Director of the Centre for Mental Health Research, College of Medicine at The Australian National University Canberra), Paul Dugdale (Director of Chronic Disease Management, Aged Care and Rehabilitation Services, ACT Health (Senior Staff Specialist) and is Associate Professor of Public Health in the ANU Medical School), Davina French (Ageing Research Unit at the ANU)

Successful Applicant – Emily Banks (Scientific Director of the 45 and Up Study, Head of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health)

Q and A Session

Presentations

Cathy Mihalopoulos, Senior Research Fellow at the Population Health Strategic Research Centre, Deakin University - Assessing the Cost-Effectiveness of Preventive Interventions for Mental Disorders: Should Australia invest in mental disorder prevention?                     

Rebecca Reeve, Research Fellow, Centre for Health Economics Research &Evaluation, UTS -  The effect of child abuse on long term health and well being: evidence from Australia

Increasing Patient Activation to Improve Health and Reduce Costs

Judith's power point  Presentation from this seminar is now available.

Abstract:
In this presentation I will review the evidence about what patient and consumer activation entails, how it is measured, and what we have learned about patients at different levels of activation. I will elaborate on the research that indicates that activation levels are predictive of health behaviors, health status, health care utilization and costs. Further, I will review the strategies that have been shown to be effective in increasing activation in patients. Finally, I will discuss how the research results are informing approaches for improving care.


Presenter:
Judith Hibbard is a Senior Researcher and Professor at the University of Oregon. Over the last 28 years she has focused her research on consumer choices and behavior in health care. She has a particular interest in testing approaches that give patients more knowledge and control over their health and health care. Her studies examine such topics as: how consumers understand and use health care information, how health literacy affects choices, enrollee behavior within consumer driven health plans, and assessments of patient and consumer activation She is the lead author of the Patient Activation Measure (PAM). Prof. Hibbard advises many health care organizations, foundations, and initiatives. She has served on several advisory panels and commissions, including the National Advisory Counsel for AHRQ, the National Health Care Quality Forum, United Health Group Physician Advisory Panel, and a National Advisory Council for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prof. Hibbard holds a masters degree in Public Health from UCLA and her doctoral degree is from the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley.

The slides from this successful workshop on the secrets to a successful health services research grant application are now available.

 
This workshop which was attended by over 30 delegates focused on NHMRC project grants and featured a panel of experts including a senior NHMRC representative, successful applicants, and grant review panel experts, who reflected on common pitfalls and the secrets of success, the key elements of a strong grant application, tips and techniques for successful grant writing, and ways to improve writing discipline.

Some of the question tackled in the Q and A session included:
• What makes different types of research (behavioral group, secondary data analysis/trial groups) fundable?
• Do projects proposing a trial of an intervention need to have an economic evaluation component and how should it be included?
• Should you bother to submit an application if you have only just completed your PhD and only have one publication?
• What should you do when you have a researcher who is essential to your research project but does not have a good track record?
• How do you decide who should be a CI and an AI and who should be the CIA?

The inaugural Australian Harkness Alumni Seminar was held at the Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra on Thursday 4 November 2010.  A new initiative for the returning Australian Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy and Practice, the aim is to highlight the Harkness Fellows findings and to enable them to engage with policy makers and researchers working in their field, as well as to promote the Harkness Fellowship and network the Alumni.

 The inaugural event highlighted the work of Martin Gallagher the 09/10 Harkness Fellow who has done some interesting (and timely) work in the US at Yale on public reporting on hospital outcomes.  

Attendance was by invitation only and included Harkness Alumni, leading policy makers, executives and expert researchers in the field of performance reporting. There were about 110 attendees and many people had flown in from around the country (including state health department senior staff).

The feedback from policy makers in attendance was that the talks about "Performance Reporting" were very informative and useful for their current work.

Thanks to the DoHA, particularly  Graeme Head , the Chief Executive of the Health Reform Transition Office for co-hosting the event and to the Commonwealth Fund and the NSW Bureau of Health Information for their sponsorship.

 The speakers presentations can be viewed below:

US Public Reporting of Hospital Outcomes – Application to Australia? – Dr Martin Gallagher, Senior Research Fellow, The George Institute for International Health and 09/10 Australian Harkness Fellow

National Performance Reporting - Mr Graeme Head, Health Reform Transition Office
                     
Dutch Health Care Performance Reports - Professor Gert Westert - Professor of Health Services Research, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) &
Tilburg University, The Netherlands 

Performance Monitoring Goes Public -  Dr Diane Watson, CEO, Bureau of Health Information, NSW

Monitoring Safety & Quality Against Standards - Professor Chris Baggoley, CE, The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) 

Performance Reporting from the Patient's Perspective - Dr Karen Luxford, Director, Patient-Based Care, Clinical Excellence Commission and Harkness Alumni Convenor 

The event concluded with a short presentation on the Harkness Fellowship and a Harkness Alumni Dinner.

 
On July 21st, the HSRAANZ co-hosted an informal Research Roundtable with the Australian General Practice Network in Auckland, prior to the World Health Care Networks Conference.

The Roundtable, which was chaired by Toni Ashton, was attended by about 30 invitees, including some of the international keynote speakers from the conference. The Roundtable commenced with brief presentations given by Judith Smith from England, Brenda Hefford and Brian Evoy from Canada, Richard Bohmer from the USA, Harry Pert from New Zealand and Bob Wells from Australia. This was followed by a presentation about primary healthcare reform in Australia by Rosemary Huxtable from the Department of Health and Ageing. The Roundtable concluded with some lively discussion about many aspects of primary care reform. Some themes that emerged were the need for more innovative and effective payment mechanisms, the role of information technology in improving primary care, the need to overcome some of the constraints imposed by professional boundaries, and – inevitably – the need for more research in the area of primary care.

Summary

Slides

Nicholas Mays, Professor of Health Policy, Health Services Research Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Visiting Professor of Health Policy, Health Services Research Centre gave a lecture on "Emerging findings from the English NHS Health Reforms Evaluation Programme" in Sydney on Tuesday, 16 March 2010.

A copy of the abstract for the lecture is attached. Mays Sydney Lecture.pdf

 For more information on the English NHS Health Reforms Evaluation Programme visit www.lshtm.ac.uk/hsru

The 2009 Conference was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and lived up to the very high standards set over the past ten years.  The conference provided a great forum for the presentation of the latest research in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the opportunity to receive updates from key international speakers about developments in other parts of the world and the opportunity to hear from and exchange views with policy makers.  

This year’s theme ‘Health Services Research – Reforming, Responding, Rewarding’ reflected the fact that in Australia we have seen the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s final report,  together with proposals for the future of both primary and preventive health services. And in New Zealand, incremental change and innovation continues apace, while memories of earlier radical restructuring and subsequent reform fatigue still lingers. 

The 2009 conference saw an exceptional group of international visitors headed by James Marone, Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. James lived up to his reputation as an entertaining speaker and an original thinker and kicked the event off with a thought provoking look at healthcare and politics in the United States. His new book, the Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office from Roosevelt to Bush and an earlier publication Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American Society (2003) which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction,  were in huge demand from the Co-op Bookshop who had a stand at the event. 

Andrew Bazemore, the second keynote speaker was sponsored by the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, Andrew is the Assistant Director of the Robert Graham Center in Washington, DC and a leading researcher in primary health care and under-served populations.  The third keynote international speaker was Gert Westert, Professor of Health Services Research at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Gert led the team which produced the Dutch Health Care Performance Report in 2006 and 2008 and he outlined how the Dutch, currently the most reformist health system, are doing health reform.

International Keynote Speakers: Andrew Bazemore , Jame Marone and Gert Westert

There was also a great line up of speakers from Australia and New Zealand and a range of special sessions, including one on Harkness Fellowships in Health Policy and Practice sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund and special sessions and workshops for early career researchers, including a presentation from the NHMRC on grant and fellowship opportunities and developing an HSR career, and new activities for corporate members. The innovate approach to the presentation of posters, which allowed poster presenters an opportunity to talk on their research for 5 minutes, was well received. 

The Association was also very lucky to have the Hon Paul Lucas MP, Queensland Deputy Premier and Minister for Health speak at the Welcome Reception on 25 November.

And an excellent Conference Dinner was held at the picturesque Customs House.

There was a great atmosphere at this year's conference, which was attended by over 250 delegates and a strong feeling that the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand. (which was an initiative that grew from the very fist conference) has come of age and that there is now a very strong and vibrant health services research community in Australia and New Zealand.  The Association is looking forward to a very busy and successful two years, in the lead up to the next conference, which will be held in Adelaide in late 2011. 

To view photographs from the conference go to http://www.hsraanz.org/Events/Photographs.aspx

For more information visit http://www.healthservicesconference.com.au

Final handbook.pdf

PHCRIS conference report.  

A special corporate members dinner was held prior to our 6th Biennial Conference on 24 November 2009.  This was a new initiative to thank our corporate groups for their continued support and provide them with an opportunity to network with each other and to the meet keynote speakers from the conference.  The dinner was held at the Point Restaurant and Bar in Brisbane and was attended by the international keynote speakers James Morone, Gert Westert and Andrew Bazemore and by representatives of Queensland Health and the New Zealand Ministry of Health. 

There was a friendly atmosphere at the event and corporate members reported that it was useful to have an opportunity to meet their counterparts from other universities and centres, keynote speakers and government representatives away from the pressure of the full conference.  The keynote speakers thought that this was a unique event, a great way to start the conference and useful introduction to HSR in Australia and New Zealand.  All agreed that similar events should be organised in the future.

Below Jane Hall, Chair of the Conference Organising Committee directs proceedings.

The Association ran a Seminar at Melbourne University on the 4th of September. This seminar discussed the different methodologies used to elicit citizen’s preference for treatment and services and their place in health services research.

final program

Slides

Colleen Doyle_Comumers in the too hard basket.pdf

Jackie Street _FluViews community engagement.pdf

John McKie Who Decides.pdf

Rosalie Viney_Discrete Choice Experiments.pdf

Paying for Performance – Understanding the Impact of the UK NHS GP

Contract Quality and Outcome Framework Since 2004 - Professor Nick Mays
The presentation for these events is now available.

5th Health Services & Policy Reserch Conference 2007

More Information
Conference hanbook (including Abstracts)

HEALTH HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING & THE PRODUCTION OF HEALTH: DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXTENDED ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR NEEDS-BASED HEALTH AND HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING - Dr Stephen Birch, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario Lecutre

Stephen Birch, George Kephart, Gail Tomblin-Murphy, Linda O'Brien-Pallas, Rob Alder, and Adrian MacKenzie: Human Resources Planning and the Production of Health: A Needs-Based Analytical Framework, pp. 1-16. Canadian Public Policy Volume 33 Supplement 1 January 2007 Link

<Presentation>

Annual General Meeting 4pm on Wednesday 3 December 2008, at the Offices of CHERE in Mary Anne House, Faculty of Business, UTS, Level 4, 645 Harris Street, Haymarket, NSW 2000 

The 2008 AGM was held at 4pm on Wednesday 3 December 2008.  Agenda items included the election of the Executive Committee for 2009. 

Agenda

HSRAANZ Public Lecture "Using Routine Data to Measure and Improve Safety and Quality of Hospital Care ".  Dr Stephen Duckett, Chief Executive of the Centre for Healthcare Improvement in Queensland Health

<<Copy of presentation>>