National Launch of HSRAANZ report “Celebrating the Achievements of Health Services Research in Australia and New Zealand 2001 to 2011”

4/12/2011 10:49:39 PM

The publication celebrates 10 years of achievements in health services research in Australia and New Zealand, with personal reflections and points of view on key research and policy themes by leading health services researchers.

The Association’s 10th anniversary publication “Celebrating the Achievements of Health Services Research in Australia and New Zealand 2001 to 2011was launched by Professor Jane Hall and Associate Professor Jackie Cumming, President of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand at the Health Services & Policy Research Conference in Adelaide on 6 December.

Associate Professor Cumming said “This publication represents the tangible celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand.  Bringing together a set of papers by leading health services researchers, looking back over the past 10 years in terms of both research and policy, seems a fitting means of recording the advances in health services research for an Association whose purpose is to facilitate communication across researchers, and between researchers and policymakers in health services research.  We are very grateful to all the authors who so willingly provided excellent essays in a relatively short time.  The report  reviews many of the topics discussed at the first two Health Services and Research Policy conferences held in 1999 (Sydney) and 2001 (Wellington)  to see which issues are perennial and unchanging and which have changed and developed over time.   Cumming noted that “the range of issues discussed by the authors of the papers illustrates just that. Health reform was discussed at those inaugural conferences and remains an important topic, along with funding models, private health insurance and economic evaluation and priority setting.  Reform in primary health care is currently a key issue in both countries, and both countries have important challenges in improving indigenous health that health services researchers are making excellent contributions to.”

“But perhaps the most obvious advances have been made in the areas of “the patient’s perspective” in Australia and in the availability of complex data for health services research. The papers on the former issue illustrate different aspects of shifting the focus of health care towards the patient. On the other side of the coin, the final papers describe the use of data at the patient level to evaluate what is delivered to whom, with what effect (and sometimes at what cost) and how to understand patients’ choices and preferences.”

 “This publication demonstrates that health services research is now well established in Australia and New Zealand; and that the last ten years have seen substantial progress across a range of issues and methodological developments.  Nonetheless, its base is a toehold rather than a secure position.  Finding funding for health services research projects is still difficult, many researchers in this field struggle with short-term employment contracts and research centres in Australia and New Zealand, which have been crucial in developing new researchers, in supporting a range of professional activities – including this the HSRAANZ – and in building research infrastructure through data and methods development, still rest on a vulnerable funding base.”

Cumming concluded “how can either country assure good stewardship of its investment in its health systems, how can it develop evidence-based policy, and how can it learn and correct policy settings without a much greater investment in learning about health systems? As the World Health Organisation has already urged, ‘now is the time’ for that investment in health services research.”

Hard copies of the publication are available from Sarah Green or a PDF can be downloaded hsr_10 ann pub_FINAL EMAIL WEB VERSION (2).pdf.