Professor Patrick McNeil, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Medicine and Health) and Executive Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, explains why Macquarie University’s integrated model is distinct in the Australian healthcare landscape.

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Macquarie University Hospital treated its first patient in 2010, making it 13 years old this year. Like any transition to adulthood, the maturation of Macquarie University’s investment in health is a milestone worth celebrating. With maturation comes wisdom, empowerment and – perhaps most importantly – the confidence to explore new ground.

Macquarie’s resolve to do healthcare differently has always been about one thing at its core: improving the lives of patients and communities. By integrating health education and training with the latest medical research and excellence in clinical care, MQ Health is delivering tangibly improved health outcomes for Australia and the world.

Our integrated model – captured in MQ Health’s ‘Heal. Learn. Discover.’ mantra and guided by two successive five-year strategic plans – has taken considerable effort to achieve. To create a distinctly integrated healthcare system, we needed to do much more than just build and operate a hospital. We needed to establish a new paradigm of clinical practice and shift the culture of our health service from that of a traditional private hospital to form a learning health system, encouraging doctors and medical professionals to work within and be active participants in the research and education missions of Macquarie University.

We also needed to establish a progressive medical school, developing distinctive education programs like the Doctor of Medicine, the Doctor of Physiotherapy and the Bachelor of Clinical Science. Our expert clinicians are teaching and mentoring our ecosystem of students, doctors and health professionals in training – and building a workforce that can confidently tackle the health challenges of the future.

The success of these integration initiatives is evident in the many tales of success across MQ Health. The number of patients we treat in our hospital and across our broad suite of clinics is growing year on year. Our MindSpot digital mental health clinic treats almost 30,000 Australians annually – including a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – at about 10 per cent of the cost of face-to-face therapy. Students consistently rate Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences courses above the Macquarie average for student satisfaction in QILT surveys. Forty-six per cent of our doctors actively participate in teaching at Macquarie, and 40 per cent are involved in research (measures we track on a quarterly basis).

The strong link between our discover and heal missions is where our integration really shines. This drive is being rewarded with considerable external research income – approximately 40 per cent of the University’s annual total. Motor Neuron Disease is just one area where MQ Health’s impact has been palpable. Our Motor Neuron Disease Research Centre treats more than 10 per cent of MND patients in Australia, and is currently running five clinical trials to investigate new treatments to slow, manage – and hopefully eventually eliminate – MND. New gene therapies discovered at Macquarie offer great promise for this and other neurodegenerative diseases.

We can be enormously proud of what we have built and are building as Australia’s first university-led, fully integrated academic health campus – and excited for what is yet to come. We are now attracting attention from national and international partners who are interested in collaboration with MQ Health – organisations that share our values of person-centred academic healthcare. The future of our health enterprise promises to be positive for our students, our staff and, most importantly, the patients and people whose lives we touch.