Research
The Centre for Health Policy, Programs and Economics undertakes evaluations of health programs and polices at international, national, state and local levels. Since 2007, its research projects have been organised around four work streams: Primary Care, Health Economics, Mental Health and Health Policy.
Health Economics
The Health Economics Work Stream undertakes a range of projects, focused on economic evaluation as well as the assessment of efficiency, equity and quality of health care production and performance, using the model of patient-centred health care delivery system. These projects have informed policy-making decisions in a range of areas, at both State and Commonwealth levels.
Health Policy
The Health Policy Work Stream undertakes research into the broad range of government and market forces that affect the accessibility, quality, and cost of health care services. Recent projects include studies of the performance of the medical liability system, medical injury, health care complaints, litigation against nursing homes, informed consent, and conflicts of interest in medical research.
Mental Health
The Mental Health Work Stream undertakes projects in the area of mental health service delivery and financing, with a particular focus on system changes that improve the ability of individual providers and services to provide co-ordinated, high quality care. The Mental Health Work Stream also explores issues around mental health outcomes, both for the general population and for specific population sub-groups. It also conducts projects in the area of psychiatric epidemiology, with a particular focus on the epidemiology of suicide.
Primary Care
The Primary Care Work Stream includes evaluations of projects run in general practice and other primary care settings, projects aimed at increasing the health and wellbeing of particular consumer groups (e.g., older people, people with diabetes) and/or projects that have a health education focus. Much of the work of the Primary Care Work Stream involves developing the capacity of funders and project workers to undertake evaluations of their own.