Under pressure: implementing change to transform healthcare

Dr David Chambers is Deputy Director for Implementation Science in the Office of the Director in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He manages a team focusing on efforts to build and advance the field of Implementation Science (IS) through funding opportunity announcements, training programs, research activities, dissemination platforms, and enhancement of partnerships and networks to integrate research, practice and policy.

From 2008 through the fall of 2014, Dr Chambers served as Chief of the Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology Branch (SRCEB) of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He arrived at NIMH in 2001, brought to the Institute to run the Dissemination and Implementation Research Program within SRCEB, developing a portfolio of grants to study the integration of scientific findings and effective clinical practices in mental health within real-world service settings. From 2006 to the fall of 2014, Dr Chambers also served as Associate Director for Dissemination and Implementation Research, leading NIH initiatives around the coordination of dissemination and implementation research in health, including a set of research announcements across 15 of the NIH Institutes and Centers, annual scientific conferences, and a summer training institute.

Louise has a background in governance, policy development, government liaison and human resource management in the non-government education sector and has always been a keen advocate of evidence based best practice. Louise believes strongly that high quality research is what will make a difference to the lives of people diagnosed with cancer, their families and carers, now and in the future. She also believes that everyone involved in a person’s cancer experience has an important role to play in enhancing that person’s experience and that consultation, collaboration, courage and most importantly, capacity, are paramount to achieving this.

Professor David Currow FAHMS is Chief Cancer Officer, New South Wales and the Chief Executive Officer of the Cancer Institute, NSW, the state’s cancer control agency. The agency is responsible for prevention, screening, improved cancer services, and funding of research infrastructure. Before this, David was the foundation Chief Executive Officer at Cancer Australia, the Australian Government’s cancer control agency.

He is a previous president of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia and was the 2015 recipient of the Tom Reeve National Award for Outstanding Contribution to Cancer Care from the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia.

Professor DeFazio holds the Sydney-West Chair in Translational Cancer Research, University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital and she is the interim Chair of the University of Sydney Cancer Research Network.

Professor DeFazio is Director of the Center for Cancer Research at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research and heads the Gynaecological Oncology research program. Her research is focused on ovarian cancer, and she is the lead investigator on INOVATe, a program focused on molecular profiling, precision medicine and ovarian cancer clinical trials. Professor DeFazio is on the executive of the Sydney-West Translational Cancer Research Centre, the GynBiobank at Westmead, the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study and kConFab.

Professor Ward is the Executive Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor Medicine and Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney.

She graduated from the University of New South Wales with a MBBS (Hons 1) in 1984 and then trained as a physician and a scientist, gaining fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians in 1991 and a PhD in Medicine at UNSW in 1994. She previously held positions at The University of New South Wales as Professor of Medicine, Clinical Associate Dean at the Prince of Wales Clinical School (UNSW) and Head of the Adult Cancer Program at the Lowy Cancer Research Centre. Robyn was also Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. From 2014 to 2018, Robyn was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Queensland, and also served as Executive Dean (Acting) of the Faculty of Medicine at UQ from 2016-18.

Trish Greenhalgh is an internationally recognised academic in primary health care and trained as a GP.  As co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Research In Health Sciences (IRIHS) unit, Trish leads a programme of research at the interface between social sciences and medicine, with strong emphasis on the organisation and delivery of health services. Her research seeks to celebrate and retain the traditional and humanistic aspects of medicine while also embracing the unparalleled opportunities of contemporary science and technology to improve health outcomes and relieve suffering.

Her past research has covered the evaluation and improvement of clinical services at the primary-secondary care interface, particularly the use of narrative methods to illuminate the illness experience in ‘hard to reach’ groups; the challenges of implementing evidence-based practice (including the study of knowledge translation and research impact); the adoption and use of new technologies (including electronic patient records and assisted living technologies) by both clinicians and patients; and the application of philosophy to clinical practice.

Dr Jean-Frédéric Levesque joined the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation as Chief Executive in June 2017. He was previously Chief Executive of the Bureau of Health Information between 2013 and 2017. He brings to the ACI leadership in healthcare system analysis and improvement, combining experience in clinical practice in refugee health and tropical medicine, in clinical governance and in academic research. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity of the University of New South Wales.

Dr Levesque has a Medical Degree, a Masters in Community Health and a Doctorate in Public Health from the Université de Montréal, Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in Preventive Medicine and Public Health. He is a member of the Strategic Analytic Advisory Committee of the Canadian Institute of Health Information and a member of the HealthShare NSW Board.

Prior to joining NSW Health, he has held senior positions responsible for publicly reporting information about the Canadian health system at the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec and the Commissaire a la santé et au bien-etre du Québec and was a Visiting Academic at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Teresa Anderson is the Chief Executive of Sydney Local Health District, one of the leading public health services in Australia. She has more than 35 years of experience as a clinician and health service executive. She has a well-established reputation for implementing strategies to foster innovation and best practice, supporting collaboration and building partnerships.

She is an internationally recognised Speech Pathologist and is passionate about developing programs and services to support and improve the health and wellbeing of all people in the community. In 2018 Dr Anderson was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Dr Anderson is a Vice President and has been made a Fellow of the NSW Institute of Public Administration Australia, is a member of seven Medical Research, Health and PHN boards and is an active member of the Sydney Health Partners Governing Council and Executive Management Group, one of the first four centres in Australia designated by the NHMRC as an Advanced Health Research Translation Centre.

A/Prof Roderick Clifton-Bligh is Head of the Department of Endocrinology at Royal North Shore Hospital, and conjoint associate professor in Medicine at the University of Sydney. He completed a PhD in the genetics of thyroid disorders at the University of Cambridge. He now supervises dual research groups, one of which focuses on the genetics of endocrine neoplasms, and the other on metabolic bone disease.

The Cancer Genetics Unit studies the molecular bases of thyroid cancer, phaechromocytoma/paraganglioma syndromes, adrenal cancer, and pituitary neoplasms. The Metabolic Bone Research Unit studies calcium-sensing receptor gene mutations and FGF23 biology.

His scope of clinical practice remains broad. He has co-supervised 10 completed PhDs, including five Endocrinologists. He maintains a strong involvement in teaching and mentoring young physicians.

Jacqueline is responsible for the leadership and professional governance of the allied health workforce in Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD). She supports the strategic and operational effectivenesss of WSLHD by working with the LHD Executive to build workforce capacity and deliver safe and sustainable clinical allied health services through the implementation of contemporary, evidenced based and multidisciplinary models of care.

Jacqueline has significant experience in state wide policy, workforce development, education and training specific to the 23 allied health professions employed by NSW Health. Jacqueline previously held the role of Principal Allied Health Advisor at the NSW Ministry of Health and established the now Allied Health Portfolio of the Health Education and Training Institute.

Jacqueline is passionate about the delivery of value based health care by allied health professionals to address the “real problems” faced by the public health system. She is committed to improving the health of people living in WSLHD through integrated research, education and clinical practice and by translating learnings into practice on the “front line”.

Professor Ben Marais works in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the Westmead Children’s Hospital.  He is Co-Director of the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity (www.sydney.edu.au/mbi) at the University of Sydney and co-leads the Centre for Research Excellence in Tuberculosis (www.tbcre.org.au).  His research focuses primarily on how children are affected by the global tuberculosis epidemic and the spread of drug resistant TB.  He is deputy-Chair of WHO/STOP-TB Partnership Child and Adolescent TB working group.

Julie Leask is professor in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney and visiting fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. Julie has qualifications in public health, nursing and midwifery. She is a social scientist specialising in vaccination uptake, programs and policy and also teaches evidence-based practice and implementation science to nursing students. She is advisor to the World Health Organization and currently chairs the Behavioural and Social Drivers of Vaccination working group. She was named overall and global category winner of the Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence in 2019.

Raghu Lingam (MBChB, DTMH, MSc, PhD) is Professor of Paediatric Population Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Honorary Senior Researcher at the University of Newcastle United Kingdom, and a Consultant Community Paediatrician within the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network. He has set up and leads the Population Child Health Services Research group at UNSW and co-leads the Kids to Adults clinical academic group as part of the Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE). He is a senior clinical academic with clinical and research interests in children and young people’s health services research. His expertise is in the development and evaluation of health services interventions that are evaluated at scale; he has run randomised controlled trials in the UK, Australia, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Mozambique. Raghu has published in areas related to health systems research and leads grants to improve health systems with particular focus on under-served populations. Over the last 5 years he has attracted over 9.5 million of UK research funding from the UK NIHR, World Bank, National Charity and Government funding. In addition, he is a Co-applicant in a recently awarded joint NIHR/NHMRC grant for a further 2.5 million. In Australia he has attracted over $6 million of grant funding in the last 24 months.

Professor Clara Chow is Academic Director of the Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC), Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. She is a cardiologist and the Program Director of Community Based Cardiac Services at Westmead hospital, Sydney, Australia. She currently holds honorary appointments as the Charles Perkins Centre Westmead Academic Co-director and President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand. Professor Chow’s research focuses on the prevention of cardiovascular disease, innovation in the delivery of cardiovascular care and the evaluation of digital health interventions. She has expertise in the design, delivery and implementation of clinical trials. Her PhD from the University of Sydney, Australia was in cardiovascular epidemiology and international public Health and her Postdoc from McMaster University, Canada in clinical trials and cardiac imaging. She is supported by a NSW Health Clinician Scientist Fellowship

Sarah Hilmer (BScMed(Hons 1) MBBS(Hons) FRACP PhD) is Head of Department of Clinical Pharmacology and a Senior Staff Specialist geriatrician at Royal North Shore Hospital, and Conjoint Professor of Geriatric Pharmacology at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is a practicing clinical pharmacologist and geriatrician; teaches geriatric medicine and clinical pharmacology; and has institutional, state, national and international leadership roles in medicines management. Her translational research program in Ageing and Pharmacology at the Kolling Institute uses pre-clinical and pharmaco-epidemiologic studies to understand relationships between medication use and geriatric syndromes (e.g. frailty, falls and cognitive impairment); and conducts randomised controlled trials and implementation studies of interventions to improve outcomes from medicines in older people.

Chief Executive of the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC), Carrie Marr has a passionate focus on quality improvement and patient safety.
Carrie began her professional health career in Scotland as a nurse before a move into nursing education, followed by specialisation in organisation effectiveness and patient safety.

She has held a number of executive and consultancy roles within the National Health Service, Scotland including Director, Tayside Centre for Organisation Effectiveness and Associate Director Change and Innovation. Prior to taking up the role at CEC in 2015, Carrie worked at Western Sydney Local Health District as Executive Director Organisation Effectiveness.

Carrie is a graduate of the advanced training program in Quality Improvement at Intermountain Health Care, Utah, USA. She also holds a Bachelor of Science (Nursing); a Diploma in Education (Nurse Teaching); and a Master of Science (Organisation Consulting).

Carrie continues to proactively collaborate and learn with health colleagues from across the globe. These experiences inform her leadership of continuous improvement in the work of NSW Health to deliver exceptional, patient-centred care.

Richard is Chief Information Officer at Sydney Local Health District.