Synopsis

Politicians and policy makers increasingly focus time and resources on measuring efficiency, accrediting health care processes and public reporting, all of which have a weak evidence base.  In contrast, there is growing international evidence that clinical repositories and benchmarking using patient outcome data can drive improvements in health care quality and efficiency and in patient outcomes.  Professor Eagar will draw on the experience of palliative care and pain management across Australia to illustrate how the outcomes of patients with chronic diseases can be measured and systematically improved.

Speakers

Professor Kathy Eagar is Professor of Health Services Research and Director of the Australian Health Services Research Institute (AHSRI) at the University of Wollongong.  AHSRI has a team of over 50 researchers and includes eight research centres. Among these are three national patient outcome centres – the Australasian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre (AROC), the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) and the electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration (ePPOC).  She has authored over 450 papers on management, quality, outcomes, information systems and funding of the Australia and New Zealand health and community care systems.