Integrated care is a global phenomenon across developed and developing countries seeking to make health and care systems both co-ordinated and person-centred. 

Australia is no exception to this, with the Productivity Commission’s recent Productivity Review highlighting the creation of integrated care as a key priority.  The arguments for integration are many – ageing demographics, increasing complexity of conditions, continued health inequalities and poor patient experience – – with health and care services struggling to collaborate successfully across organisational and sectoral boundaries. Successfully addressing fragmentation in pathways, practice and purposes could potentially improve outcomes and make services more effective and efficient.

The common building blocks of a more integrated system are well recognised – stratification to help target resources, multi-disciplinary teams to bring together professionals, new roles to address delivery and co-ordination gaps, and purchasing for population level outcomes. Delivering these in practice and at scale and evidencing the expected impacts have been achieved, requires constructive leadership and sustained interest. This masterclass will explore the hopes and realities of integrated care through the lenses of policy, research and practice. It will provide the latest thinking on how it can best be planned, implemented and evaluated and the leadership approaches that will inspire and bring together those from across a health and care system. Delivered by researchers with international reputations in the fields of integration, collaboration and leadership it will provide a challenging and interactive masterclass.

The workshop will be relevant to those who have an interest and/or role in developing integrated care within their health and care system. This will include clinicians, leaders, senior managers and commissioners from the statutory and / or community sectors and hospital and/ or primary care settings.

Presenter Information

Dr Robin Miller, University of Birmingham

Robin is Deputy Director of the Health Services Management Centre. An applied health care researcher, he co-ordinates and teaches on numerous leadership programmes for clinicians, senior managers and purchasers He is the Joint Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Integrated Care and  Co-Editor of the UK based Journal of Integrated Care. He leads on a variety of applied research projects within health and care, with a particular focus on evaluating and learning from change initiatives. Current projects include primary care transformation in Wales and London, and the national evaluation of the Integrated Health and Care Pioneer programme. He has published widely in the field of integrated care including three books. In addition to his University role Robin is a Senior Associate of the International Federation of Integrated Care, an advisory group member of the European Primary Care Network, and a Fellow of the School for Social Care Research.

Associate Professor Helen Dickinson, UNSW Canberra

Helen Dickinson is Associate Professor Public Service Research and Director of the Public Service Research Group at the School of Business, University of New South Wales, Canberra.  Her expertise is in public services, particularly in relation to topics such as governance, leadership, commissioning and priority setting and decision-making.  Helen has published sixteen books and over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics and is also a frequent commentator within the mainstream media.  She is co-editor of the Journal of Health, Organization and Management and Australian Journal of Public Administration.  In 2015 Helen was made a Victorian Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and she has worked with a range of different levels of government, community organisations and private organisations in Australia, UK, New Zealand and Europe on research and consultancy programmes. 

Dr Karen Gardner

Karen joined the Public Service Research Group in the Business School UNSW Canberra as a Senior Research Fellow in February 2017. She is a health services researcher with a background in sociology and population health. Her research focuses on quality improvement, primary care performance monitoring and management, and the co-design, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions. She has worked in community sector, government and academic roles and for the past ten years, has been working in partnership with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services and in general practice and community health settings. Karen has more than 50 working papers, technical reports, book chapters and peer reviewed publications and is a current member of the Evaluation Working Group, Health Care Homes, Australian Department of Health (2016-2019).

Enrolments in this masterclass are limited, so book early to secure your place.