Health Services and Clinical Informatics Subcommittee
The Health Services and Clinical Informatics Subcommittee is made up of members across MACH sites, co-chaired by Professors Harriet Hiscock and Dave Story. The goal of the subcommittee is to promote engagement and funding opportunities for Health Services and Clinical Informatics research across MACH. To achieve this the subcommittee aims to:
facilitate networking and collaborative opportunities across the community, primary, secondary and tertiary care
promote the implementation of evidence-based delivery of care at a community and national level
foster health services and clinical informatics training
assist in the submission of quality grant applications that address concerns from a consumer perspective
In 2018 an expression of interest was undertaken to appoint members to the subcommittee. Members include:
Prof Harriet Hiscock Co-Chair
Royal Children's Hospital
Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Professor Hiscock is a consultant paediatrician and NHMRC Practitioner Fellow. She is the inaugural Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital Health Services Research Unit, Group Leader of the Health Services group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Director of the Australian Paediatric Research Network, and Director of the Unsettled Babies Clinic.
Her health services research develops and tests sustainable and cost-effective solutions to improve care for common child health problems, keep children out of hospital, reduce unnecessary care (waste), and optimize equity in access to mental health services. She established (in 2008) and leads the Australian Paediatric Research Network, a practice-based secondary care network of 540 paediatricians who contribute to her trials. In 2019-203, she is leading an NHMRC Centre of excellence in Childhood
Adversity and associated Anxiety and depression. She has published 120 peer-reviewed articles in top ranked journals such as the British Medical Journal and has successfully translated her work into practice and policy. She has led > 10 RCTs and is assisted by a team of 20 researcher staff and students.
For further information please see:
A/Prof Kim Dalziel
University of Melbourne
Kim Dalziel joined the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne in January 2013. She is a current Harkness Fellow with The Commonwealth Fund based at The University of Michigan for 2017/18. She is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Health Economics Group, Centre for Health Policy. She also leads the Health Technology Group within the Centre who perform evaluations for the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) to guide Medicare investment decisions.
She leads a program of research in child health and has specialist expertise in economic evaluation and modelling, child health policy, vulnerability/equity and use of health services and economic evaluation alongside clinical trials. She has a strong interest in health services research and is a member of the Health Services Research group at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
For further information see:
Prof Graeme Hart
Austin Health
Professor Graeme Hart is the Chief Medical Information officer at Austin Health. He has over 30 years clinical practice in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. He resigned as Director of Intensive Care at Austin Health in October 2017 and continued to work as a Senior Staff specialist in Intensive Care at Austin ICU and Warringal Private Hospital. Professional commitments include: Member Health Information Society of Australia and HL7; Fellow Australian College of Health Informatics; Dep Chair of Health Smart Clinical Systems Steering Committee, DHS, Vic; and Intensive Care Advisory Committee, DHS Vic.
Professor Hart has published over 90 peer reviewed publications, 3 book chapters, 15 non-peer review reports, and over 50 abstracts. His research interests include epidemiology of critical illness, impact of limited resources on quality of care and health systems enhancement. Previously the Clinical Director of Austin Centre for Applied Clinical Informatics (ACACI), he played a major role in structuring electronic medical record software to be responsive to the needs of patients and supporting health care workers with decision making and in preparing Austin Health for transition to Electronic Medical Record.
Prof Edward Janus
Western Health
University of Melbourne
Professor Edward Janus is Director of Research at Western Health where he was previously Head of the General Internal Medicine Unit. He is an honorary Professorial Fellow in the Department of Medicine, Western Health, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne. His PhD from London University was in genetic disorders of lipid metabolism particularly Familial Hypercholesterolaemia. Before that he obtained his MD with distinction from his alma mater, the University of Otago, on Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency.
He is a consultant general physician as well as a chemical pathologist with broad expertise and a special clinical and research interest in the epidemiology and the primary and secondary prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in individuals as well as in the population. Edward’s other research interest is in translation and implantation research in hospital and community settings. He is a founder member and current Treasurer of the Asian Pacific Society of Atherosclerosis and Vascular Diseases and previous Chairman of the World Heart Foundation Council on Arteriosclerosis.
Prof Dave Story
Co-Chair
Austin Hospital
University of Melbourne
David Story is the Foundation Chair of Anaesthesia at The University of Melbourne; and leads the Anaesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine program of the Centre for Integrated Critical Care, where he is also Deputy Director. He directs the Melbourne Clinical and Translational Sciences (MCATS) platform, supporting clinical and cost effectiveness research. He is a member of the Executive of the ANZCA clinical trials network as well as the ANZCA Research Committee and ANZCA Safety and Quality Committee. David is a part time Staff Anaesthetist at Austin Health and provides perioperative care for most surgical groups including patients undergoing liver transplantation. His health services research includes integrated multidisciplinary pre-operative patient optimisation and risk based post-operative care with the aim of reducing short and long-term complications, disability, and mortality.
For further information please see:
A/Prof Douglas Boyle
University of Melbourne
A/Prof Boyle is the Director of the HaBIC Research Information Technology Unit (HaBIC R2) based within the Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne. HaBIC R2 specialises in being a technology enabler for research in particular in the domains of data acquisition for population health research, quality assurance, primary care data, data linkage and decision support tool development.
Since 2006 A/Prof Boyle has been researching, developing and implementing systems for the ethical acquisition of record-linkable data for audit, research and health surveillance (GRHANITE™). Consent management, security and privacy-protecting record linkage are key components and research areas. The software system supports data acquisition and record linkage across multiple domains including hospital medicine (it is a foundational component of BioGrid), primary care, social care and education. The system is now responsible for the largest collections of record-linkable primary care data ever accumulated in Australia, underpins National STI surveillance and research and innovative cancer research and linkage at the VCCC.
In the sphere of health services research, A/Prof Boyle is leading developments to impact whole systems of care developing new translational tools and systems based on GRHANITE™ following the methodology of Learning Health Systems. This work aims to transform the identification and treatment of rising risk patient groups and minimize hospitalization and disease progression. This research is supported by the Department of General Practice Data for Decisions initiative (a programme of research incorporating a primary care data repository for research - PATRON) and the wide ranging skills of DGP in the areas of clinical trials, translational General Practice research, user-centered design and epidemiology.
Prior to emigrating from Scotland in 2006, A/Prof Boyle worked in a similar capacity to develop and implement technologies for wide-scale data acquisition. His system SCI-DC Network is internationally recognised and is playing a continuing key role in the support of population-based diabetes health service provision across Scotland.
For further information please see: and
Prof Jon Emery
Western Health
University of Melbourne
Professor Jon Emery is the Herman Professor of Primary Care Cancer Research at the University of Melbourne and Western Health, a new Chair developed within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He is an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow, Director of the Cancer Australia Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trials Group (PC4), and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He studied medicine at Cambridge and Oxford and obtained his DPhil at Oxford on computer decision support to assess cancer risk in general practice. He leads a parallel program of cancer research between Melbourne and Cambridge on cancer screening, early diagnosis and follow-up care. His research interests are in the role of primary care in cancer prevention, diagnosis and follow-up, and primary care trials of complex interventions.
For further information see:
Prof Maarten IJzerman
VCCC
University of Melbourne
Professor Maarten J. IJzerman is the VCCC Chair of Cancer Health Services Research in the School of Population and Global Health and the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences in Melbourne Australia. He also holds a fractional appointment as a full professor in the University of Twente, the Netherlands.
He is leading a global research team working on data-driven research to improve value-based healthcare, with a specific interest in the role of molecular diagnostics for personalized medicine. He has expertise in health economics, clinical decision making and health services research, and is one of the pioneers in the field of early Health Technology Assessment, a research program to determine the added value of new medical technologies in development. He currently co-chairs the data-driven cancer Health Services Research initiative linking clinical and admin data to analyse patterns of care and real-world use of new targeted immunotherapies. His research is funded through different international funding sources, including European Union H2020 funding schemes, the Netherlands Health Research council (ZonMw), Melbourne Genomics and the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
Multi-disciplinary field that aims to improve the health services patients receive in the community, primary, secondary and tertiary care by delivering services that are [STEEEP]:
• Safe
• Timely and accessible
• Effective
• Efficient
• Equitable
• Patient Centred
Uses theories of human behavior, evidence from medical science and health economics to examine how people get access to health care practitioners and health care services, how much care costs, and what happens to patients because of this care. Emphasis may be on improvement of services, not just benchmarking.
What is Clinical Informatics?
Study of information technology and how it can be applied to the healthcare field. Includes structuring data (i.e. collecting, storing, interpreting, analyzing) so that it can be effectively retrieved and used in a healthcare report or evaluation.
Terms of Reference
Facilitate networking and collaborative opportunities for health services and clinical informatics research across MACH partners that includes the community, primary, secondary and tertiary care
Encourage and assist in the submission of quality grant applications that address issues from a consumer perspective
Promote the implementation of evidence-based delivery of care within health systems at a community and national level
Engage with members of MACH to support and promote local research activities
Foster health services and clinical informatics training using leading health systems methodologies
