HARC Scholarship Program

The HARC Scholarship program is available to employees of the HARC partner organisations: the Clinical Excellence Commission; the Agency for Clinical Innovation; the Bureau of Health Information; Cancer Institute NSW; and the Sax Institute.

It aims to build future leaders who:

  • Are skilled in using research in policy and program development
  • Work to close evidence practice gaps in NSW
  • Are connected to national and international experts in health services research.

Scholarship details

Recipients receive up to $10,000 to investigate an issue of interest with guidance from a local mentor. The project must be based on a challenge facing their agency and should include a literature review, a description of solutions implemented internationally and recommendations for future approaches.

The scholarship includes a visit to a national or international agency with expertise in the relevant field. Recipients seek the agency’s input to their project and develop collaborative links.

Contact

For enquiries about the scholarship program please contact Knowledge Exchange Division on 9188 9500

Scholarship forum

The first HARC Scholars Forum was held on 16 April 2015. Six former scholars presented on their research projects and the impact that the scholarship had on their organisations and their own career development. For more information, watch the scholars’ presentations.

Past scholarship recipients

2019 recipients

  • Ivana Goluza Riddell (ACI)
    Audit and Feedback Implementation Laboratories: Leveraging international experience to bridge science and practice for a learning healthcare system in NSW Health
  • Jenny Miu (CINSW)
    Understand how strategic cancer plans and performance measurement can drive changes in the health system
  • Matthew Warner-Smith (CINSW)
    The use of artificially intelligent image recognition for mammographic reading
  • Kha Vo  (BHI)
    Methods to investigate hospital ratings over time using data from the Patient Experience Survey program

2018 recipients

  • Fiona Bailey (CEC)
    Investigating sustainable measures to reduce risk of harm from high-risk medicines
  • Lea Kirkwood (ACI)
    Transdisciplinary Innovation – designing solutions for complex systems issues
  • Selvana Awad (CEC)
    Reducing harm from medication errors and venous thromboembolism (VTE) using effective electronic clinical decision support tools and quality improvement science methodology
  • Lisa Corscadden (BHI)
    Exploring methods for public reporting of disparities in healthcare access and quality
  • Mary Mitchelhill (CINSW)
    Optimising payment models to drive better value cancer screening services

2017 recipients

  • Amy Bisson (CEC)
    Responding to CPE (carbapenem-producing enterobacteriaceae): reducing unwarranted clinical variation and harm from multi-drug resistant organisms for patients in NSW public health facilities
  • Tina Chen (CINSW)
    Applying point-of-care patient-reported outcome and experience measures to achieve more effective,  patient-centred cancer care
  • Ruyamuro Kwedza (CINSW)
    Strengthening approaches to collaboratively understanding and addressing clinical variation in cancer care across NSW

2016 recipients

2015 recipients

2014 recipients

  • Bernadette King (CEC) – Improving end of life experience for patients and their families in NSW public health facilities. Read Bernadette’s HARC Scholarship Report
  • Kerrin Bleicher (BHI) – Data Matters: Linked Data – improving healthcare quality with integrated information. Read Kerrin’s HARC Scholarship Report
  • Matthew Murray (ACI) – Current practice in risk management in emergency departments including the evaluation of incidents and the application to practice. Read Matthew’s HARC Scholarship Report 
  • Diane Hindmarsh (BHI) – Using Patient Surveys to measure, inform and improve hospital performance: investigating international best practice”. Read Dianes’ HARC Scholarship Report
  • Wilson Yeung (CEC) – Improving teamwork and communication in healthcare teams to improve the system. Read Wilson’s HARC Scholarship Report

2013 recipients

  • Alison Lee (CEC) – Using the evidence from the business case for Patient Based Care to drive practice changes in health services
  • Bea Brown (Sax Institute) – Implementation research: Complementing evidence-based medicine with evidence-based implementation
  • Gai Moore (Sax Institute) – How can we effectively present evidence from research for policymakers?

2011 recipients

  • Paula Cheng (CEC) – Best practices in managing surgical and anaesthetic mortality audits
  • Anne Darton (ACI) – Achieving international best practice in post acute care and inpatient rehabilitation for severe burn injured people; what are the gaps in care for NSW burn injured people?
  • Bronwyn Shumack (CEC) – Bridging the gulf between human factors theory and everyday practice at the clinical frontline

2010 recipients

  • Carolyn Der Vartanian (CEC) – From Facebook to blogs: the role of social marketing and social media to engage clinicians and fast-track evidence into practice
  • Barbara Strettles (ACI) – Achieving international best practice in systems for the collection and analysis of a state-wide clinical data set and the integration of results into clinical practice within the NSW Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program
  • Fidye Westgarth (ACI) – Building sustainability into clinical innovation