HARC 2015 scholars announced

Four new Hospital Alliance for Research Collaboration (HARC) scholars will have the opportunity to travel abroad to investigate areas of future health policy ranging from antimicrobial resistance to design thinking in healthcare, after recently being awarded 2015 scholarships. HARC is a collaboration between the Sax Institute, the Clinical Excellence Commission, the Agency for Clinical Innovation and the Bureau of Health Information to drive innovative thinking about current and future healthcare challenges. (Watch a video on the HARC Scholarship Program below).

HARC scholars 2015

Kate Callaghan, CEC

Miss Callaghan, the antimicrobial stewardship project officer at the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) was awarded the HARC scholarship for a project entitled: “Modifying antibiotic prescribing behaviours: exploring innovative antimicrobial stewardship interventions and the science behind their success”.

Miss Callaghan said she would investigate innovative behavioural change research, strategies, technologies and interventions in the context of antimicrobial stewardship, and would evaluate the potential for translating insights into Australian tertiary healthcare environments.

Sigrid Patterson, ACI

The scholarship project to be undertaken by Sigrid Patterson, Evaluation Manager, Health Economics and Evaluation Team at the Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) is titled: “Assessing the way we define, measure and evaluate health outcomes and deliver public value: implementing value‒based care in NSW”.  She said a value‒based healthcare approach advocated a move away from measuring and funding the volume of healthcare delivered, and towards a system that measured outcomes and value for patients.

Learn about the HARC scholarships’ impact

Katinka Moran, BHI

The 2015 HARC scholarship will allow Katinka Moran, senior health services researcher at the Bureau of Health Information (BHI), to investigate how to optimise online reporting of healthcare performance data for heterogeneous audiences. She said the project aimed to guide BHI’s successful delivery of online healthcare performance data in a relevant, accessible manner that encouraged uptake by all stakeholders.

Estelle Marque, ACI

Estelle Marque, Centre for Healthcare Redesign course manager at ACI, was awarded a scholarship this year for a project entitled: “How can we learn from Design Thinking to support sustainable transformational change delivering better outcomes for patients, carers and staff?” Mrs Marque said she aimed to meet with worldwide Design Thinking experts to observe and identify how this methodology could support NSW Health staff to design human-centred systemic innovation that delivered better outcomes for patients and staff.

The scholarships, first awarded in 2010, are available to employees of the HARC partner organisations: the CEC, ACI, BHI and the Sax Institute. They aim to support future healthcare leaders to develop advanced skills in using research in policy making, as well as helping them develop connections to national and international experts in health services research.

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