New $1.5 million funding
Keeping Australians healthier and out of hospital
27 August 2019
The Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) at Macquarie University, alongside partners from the New South Wales (NSW) Agency for Clinical Innovation, NSW Bureau of Health Information and Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy with NSW Health, has been awarded $1.5 million funding from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund for an ambitious three-year program to support best practice care across the New South Wales health system.
With world leading expertise in implementing research findings into everyday clinical and health system policy and practice, AIHI will work with these partners to examine strategically important healthcare initiatives in NSW and provide a road map to effectively replicate these initiatives state- and nation-wide.
This research program will support the flagship NSW Health Leading Better Value Care Program (LBVC) which aims to deliver better value services to the people of NSW. It will examine seven promising evidence-based interventions drawn from this program in NSW, targeting high prevalence chronic conditions, to improve clinical management and patient outcomes, including avoiding emergency department (ED) or hospital admissions, reducing the length of hospital stays, and enhancing patient-reported experiences and outcomes.
Across a range of conditions and projects, the research program will provide new models for change to help scale up and roll out these LBVC evidence-based initiatives, that are not currently standardised across NSW, but have been demonstrated to be effective. The research program will look at initiatives in the management of some of the leading causes of hospital admission including chronic heart failure, lung disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and kidney disease.
Chief Investigator Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Founding Director of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation and program lead says “By helping ensure these excellent NSW initiatives are implemented and become widespread in everyday practice, we can benefit all who need care, enabling people to self-manage their own health, access first-rate, effective out of hospital healthcare, or obtain treatment in the right setting for them.”
The good news is older people in Australia are living longer, but often with more than one long term health issue such as osteoarthritis, heart disease, obesity or diabetes. At the same time our spending on health is increasing year on year.
“Ultimately, the key to better care for chronic and complex conditions lies in major improvements in the delivery of best practice care across the entire health system."
“The challenge is complex, but the aim is simple: we want to ensure the right care is delivered in the right setting to the right patient via the right model of care, at the right time, and at the right cost.”
Professor Braithwaite indicated that this grant will support these internationally regarded initiatives in NSW and develop implementation models in conjunction with the more than 100,000 people in NSW Health working every day to make the care experience and clinical outcomes better than ever before.
While the LBVC Program has already effectively identified priority areas to begin improving the care of people with chronic heart failure, one of the most common causes of hospital admission, the new research will explore the factors that make this a successful initiative and develop a plan for it to be suitably adapted and implemented across other health jurisdictions, nation-wide.
The research program will run for three years to 2021 in a partnership of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, the NSW Ministry of Health, NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, NSW Bureau of Health Information and Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy.
Lead investigators for the research program are:
- Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite—Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
- Professor Johanna Westbrook—Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
- Professor Richard Day—University of New South Wales
- Professor Jean-Frederic Levesque—NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation
- Associate Professor Rebecca Mitchell—Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
- Professor Frances Rapport —Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
- Dr Henry Cutler—Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy
- Dr Yvonne Tran—Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
- Dr Robyn Clay-Williams—Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
Acknowledgements: This research is funded by Australia’s Medical Research Future Fund (APP1178554) for a grant entitled: “Harnessing implementation science, complexity science and evidence-based care to Keep Australians Out of Hospital: leveraging seven natural experiments in New South Wales”
CENTRES RELATED TO THIS NEWS
Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science
Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Chrissy Clay, Research Outreach Coordinator