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The CHSD Team

The Centre works as a multidisciplinary team and the staff has qualifications and expertise across sixteen disciplines. About half of the team has previous experience working in policy, management and clinical positions in the health system. There is a commitment to blending quantitative and qualitative approaches and to producing outputs that are easily understood, and that can be of practical use. The CHSD team in 2008 are:

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Other Affiliates

In addition to core staff, the CHSD has a number of honorary fellows and affiliates who collaborate with us on specific research projects and play a key role in forging links between the CHSD and the health industry.

Honorary fellows and affiliates include:

  • Dr Andrew Bezzina, South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service
  • Dr Thomas Trauer, University of Melbourne
  • Mr Tim Coombs, Australian Mental Health Outcomes Classification Network
  • Dr Roslyn Poulos, University of NSW
  • Ms Rebekkah Middleton, Illawarra Health
  • Ms Tineke Robinson, Independent Consultant
  • Dr Mark Rix, Graduate School of Business (University of Wollongong)
  • Ms Carla Cranny, Independent Consultant
  • Dr Ngaire Brown, Menzies School of Health Research
  • Mr Tom Cleary, OPSM
  • Professor David Currow, Flinders University of South Australia
  • Dr Christopher Poulos, South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service
  • Ms Mary Ellen Burke, Independent Consultant
  • Professor Robert Gibberd, University of Newcastle
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Kathy Eagar, Professor and Director of the CHSD (email)

Professor Eagar is Director of the Centre and is involved in all aspects of the Centre’s work. Kathy has over twenty five years experience in the health and community care systems, during which she has divided her time almost equally between being a clinician, a senior manager and a health academic.

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Robert Gordon, Deputy Director (email)

Robert Gordon’s full-time position at CHSD supports research projects in sub and non-acute care, casemix development, community health classification and health financing. Rob undertakes the day to day management of the Centre and directly manages many of its projects.

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Elizabeth Cuthbert, Business Manager (email)

Elizabeth joined the Centre in 2003 as the full time Business Manager. Elizabeth is responsible for managing the Centre’s finances, negotiating all Centre contracts, and managing the Centre’s IT requirements. She is also responsible for coordinating the development of refinements to SNAPshot, an integrated software package developed and managed by the Centre.

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Don Lewis, Professor (Health Economics) (email)

Professor Lewis is now retired as Professor of Economics and Associate Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Commerce. Don joined the Centre to assist future health research from his perspective as a former President of the Australian Health Economics Society (1994 to 1999) and his research interests in health economics include environmental health, program evaluation and private health insurance.

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Ian Ring, Professor (Public Health) (email)

Ian Ring is a part-time Professorial Fellow-Academic Development, at the CHSD. Ian was previously Principle Medical Epidemiologist and Executive Director of the Health Information Branch at Qld Health and had also been Head of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University, and Foundation Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at ANU. He is a medical graduate with qualifications in epidemiology and public health. His current research interests are particularly in Indigenous health and Cardiovascular health. His main role is to assist in strengthening the research capacity of the Centre.

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Peter Eklund, Professor and Head of Information Systems (Health Informatics) (email)

Professor Eklund is the Chair of Information Systems at the University of Wollongong. Peter's interests are in Health Informatics modelling and the management of electronic healthcare documents and terminologies.

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Roy Harvey, Associate Professor (Health Economics) (email)

Associate Professor Roy Harvey’s research interests focus on outcomes data and its use in benchmarking and health financing research. Roy is also a health policy adviser to the Australian Council of Social Service and, as part of that role, convenor of the Access to Medicines Consortium (comprising ACOSS, Medicines Australia, Australian Medical Association, Consumers' Health Forum and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, a group concerned with barriers to access to medicines). Since 1995, Roy has been involved in consultancies on health financing for the World Bank and AusAID in Eastern Europe, South East Asia and China. Roy holds a fractional position at the CHSD.

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J.E. (Ben) Marosszeky, Associate Professor and Clinical Director of AROC (email)

Associate Professor Ben Marosszeky took up a part-time position at CHSD in 2002 as the inaugural Clinical Director of AROC. He is also the Director of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Westmead Hospital, a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at University of Sydney and a Councillor of the World Forum of Neurological Rehabilitation. Dr Marosszeky brings to the CHSD wide ranging and internationally recognised clinical experience in rehabilitation medicine.

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Jim Pearse, Associate Professor (Health Services Research) (email)

Associate Professor Jim Pearse recently joined the centre on a part time basis after 18 years working in various health and social policy roles in Government in NSW and the Northern Territory. His research interests include funding models, resource allocation and priority setting within health systems, national/state relations within federal health systems and measurement of health system performance. Jim was a 2000-2001 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy.

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Heather Yeatman, Associate Professor (Policy Research) (email)

Dr Heather Yeatman is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health and undertakes her research as a member of the CHSD. Within the Centre, Heather has a key role in work on healthy public policy, with a specific focus on food policy, and how this translates into standards and regulation.

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Jan Sansoni, Principal Research Fellow and Director of AHOC (email)

Jan Sansoni is the Director of the Australian Health Outcomes Collaboration (AHOC). Jan provides research support and education to the health and community industry by assisting individuals, services and government departments with outcome evaluation of health care interventions and services. Through AHOC Jan convenes a national health outcomes conference in Canberra each year, is active in a number of international collaborations concerning health outcomes measurement, and undertakes a range of health outcomes research consultancy activities.

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Gary Eckstein, Senior Research Fellow (Medical Demography) (email)

Dr Gary Eckstein holds part-time positions with the CHSD and the Health Services Research Group, University of Newcastle. Gary participates as a senior researcher developing projects in health demography, and providing expert statistical advice in the areas of health financing and resource distribution.

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Janette Green, Senior Research Fellow (Applied Statistics) (email)

Janette Green’s full-time position provides expert statistical skills on projects, primarily in classification development, benchmarking and outcome measurement. She has applied her statistical skills to a wide range of areas in the health sector, including rehabilitation, mental health and palliative care. In addition, she continues with undergraduate teaching and, from time to time, she runs workshops for health professionals on the use and interpretation of statistics. A new venture in 2005 was to coordinate some international comparisons of rehabilitation data within the International Rehabilitation Outcomes Network.

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Malcolm Masso, Senior Research Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Malcolm Masso is a full-time Senior Research Fellow at the CHSD. Prior to joining the Centre he worked for over 25 years in the health system as a clinician and manager, including 15 years of executive responsibility for clinical services in both large and small hospitals in rural and metropolitan areas. He has academic qualifications in economics, nursing administration and public health. Malcolm is currently involved in two national palliative care projects and a project examining the relationship between primary care services and emergency departments.

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Alan Owen, Senior Research Fellow (Community Care Research) (email)

Alan Owen holds a full-time position at the CHSD and his research interest is in tools for measuring client characteristics in the community, covering disability and aged care, mental health and community health. Alan also provides assistance on local evaluation plans and surveys and other Centre projects. Alan is also a health policy adviser for ACOSS and is a member of the Guardianship and Mental Health Review Tribunals.

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Karen Quinsey, Senior Research Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Karen Quinsey is a part time Senior Resaearch Fellow at the CHSD. Karen joined CHSD in 2002 on a part-time basis to manage AROC's function as the Australasian manager of the Functional Independence Measure. Karen had previously worked in the Centre on secondment from Illawarra Health. Karen has worked in the health system in Occupational Therapy, Community Health Management and Health Service Improvement. Her academic qualifications are in Occupational Therapy and Public Health. Karen is currently managing the two national palliative care projects and working on the AROC team.

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Frances Simmonds, Senior Research Fellow (AROC Manager) (email)

Frances Simmonds is appointed as the AROC Manager, and commenced duties with CHSD in mid January 2006. Frances brings to CHSD extensive health sector experience at a senior level in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, Frances has been employed as the National Director, Funder Relations for the Sisters of Charity Health Service. During the last 12 years, Frances has filled several senior executive roles, all of which have involved management of national projects or functions. As the AROC Manager, Frances has key responsibility for managing the project on a day to day basis.

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Cristina Thompson, Senior Research Fellow (Health Service Research) (email)  

Cristina Thompson joined CHSD in July 2008.  In the full-time position of Senior Research Fellow, she supports research projects in the areas of health policy, strategy, service development and planning.  Prior to joining the Centre Cristina worked for over 25 years in the health system as a clinician and senior manager, in both rural and metropolitan health settings.  Her most recent role included responsibility for strategy, planning and corporate development for a major NSW Area Health Service. Cristina trained as a Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife and has academic qualifications in Sociology, Public Sector and Business Administration.

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Prue Watters, Senior Research Fellow (PCOC Manager) (email)

Prue Watters has 18 years’ experience managing projects on behalf of donors such as AusAID and the Asian Development Bank, gained while employed by IDP Education Australia. Over six years, her work with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons resulted in their successfully tendering for four AusAID-funded projects with a combined value of $19m. Prue also partnered Aus Health International to tender successfully for health reform projects in Fiji and Tonga.

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Damian Ryan, Honorary Senior Lecturer (Health Informatics) (email)

Dr. Ryan is the Director of TACT at the South East Illawarra Area Health Service and partner investigator in the ePOC ARC Linkage grant investigating the use of PDAs to collect clinical data in the health in the home setting.

 
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Maree Banfield, Senior Research Fellow (Palliative Care - PCOC) (email)

Maree Banfield is the National Education and Quality Improvement Manager for the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC).  Maree joined CHSD in 2004 on a practitioner fellowship 1 day a week from her position as Palliative Care Service Manager at Calvary Health Care, Sydney.  A full-time secondment was arranged in 2007 to enable Maree to assume the position of the national education and training manager for PCOC.  In September 2008 Maree resigned from Calvary and was appointed Senior Research Fellow – Palliative Care.  Maree is also a Registered Nurse and Certified Midwife and brings to CHSD extensive experience at an executive and clinical level in the palliative care sector of the health care system. 

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Monique Berger, Research Fellow (AROC) (email)

Monique is a registered nurse with extensive experience in rehabilitation nursing. Monique joined CHSD in 2008 and works as an AROC Master FIM trainer. Monique has a particular focus on expanding AROC’s network into New Zealand.

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Lois Burgess, Lecturer in Information Systems (Health Informatics) (email)

Lois is a Chief investigator on the ePOC ARC Linkage grant which investigates the use of PDA's as a platform for data collection in the health in the home.

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Alison Wicks, Honorary Research Fellow (Occupational Science) (email)

Dr Alison Wicks was appointed as an Honorary Research Fellow in January 2005. She is the Founding Director of the Australasian Occupational Science Centre (AOSC) which is a new research centre within CHSD. The AOSC is located at the Shoalhaven Campus in Nowra. Alison is an occupational therapist with 25 years experience as a health practitioner. Since 2000, she has been focusing on research in occupational science. Occupational science is a broad interdisciplinary field concerned with the study of human occupation in relation to health in daily living and with the social classificiations economics, policies, systems, culture and geography that govern human occupation. Alison is President of the Australasian Society of Occupational Scientists and Project Leader of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists International Advisory Group: Occupational Science.

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Sonia Bird, Research Fellow (Applied Statistics) (email)

Sonia Bird is a full time member of CHSD, supporting research projects including Palliative Care and the NSW Clinical Services Redesign Program. Her work involves data management, statistical analysis and report writing. Sonia has tertiary qualifications in Mathematics, Applied Statistics and Finance.

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Joe Docherty, Analyst Programmer (PCOC) (email)

Joe joined the CHSD in July 2008 and is working primarily with the PCOC team to improve the PCOC data submission and reporting functions.

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Dave Fildes, Research Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Dave Fildes holds a full time position at the CHSD. He conducts literature reviews, contributing to the development of policy options and preparing reports for Government agencies across a range of subject areas as part of his research at the Centre. He is involved in a variety of CHSD projects including palliative care service delivery and community development and assessment. Dave has tertiary qualifications in Communication and Cultural Studies, Politics and Public Health.

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Luise Lago, Research Fellow (Applied Statistics) (email)

Luise Lago is a full-time member of the CHSD, joining in 2004. Luise supports research projects which involve statistical work including survey design and classifications development. Luise has experience in sample design and data analysis. Her academic qualifications are in Mathematics and Applied Statistics.

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Janet Law, Research Fellow (AROC) (email)

Janet is an occupational therapist who also works at Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Centre.  Janet  joined CHSD in 2007 an has worked with AROC as a Master FIM trainer and has taken a lead role in providing the AROC impairment specific benchmarking  workshops.

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Christopher Magee, Research Fellow (email)

Dr Christopher Magee is a full time Research Fellow at CHSD. He has experience in health psychology/public health research, health measurement and applied statistics (including psychometrics). Christopher currently contributes to a range of projects within CHSD.

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Nick Marosszeky, Research Fellow (Psychometrics) (email)

Nick is a specialist in psychometrics and health outcomes measurement. He joined the Centre after experience in evaluation and psychological research and has worked on assessment and information issues in primary care. He works closely with AHOC on the psychometrics and evidence for how outcomes measures can be used.

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Peter Samsa, Research Fellow (Health Informatics) (email)

Peter Samsa joined the Centre in 2005 after working for the Council of Social Service of NSW and a variety of non-Government human service organisations. His interests include health informatics, and data standards for health and human services. He has academic qualifications in Social Work, and Information and Communication Technology.

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Tara Stevermuer, Research Fellow (Applied Statistics) (email)

Tara Stevermuer is a full time member of CHSD where she is the AROC Data Manager and CHSD website administrator. Tara is also involved in various CHSD projects, ranging from community health and community care surveys, evaluation of Community Health Asthma Program (CHAP), to building databases to assist prioritorisation for service for NSW Home Care and NSW Provision of Appliances for Disabled People (PADP). Tara brings extensive statistical and database management skills to CHSD. Tara holds a conjoint appointment as lecturer to the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW.

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Anita Westera, Research Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Anita Westera joined the CHSD on a part-time basis in July 2005. Anita has over 20 years experience working in the health, aged and community care sectors, as a Registered Nurse as well as policy officer for the Commonwealth and NSW Governments and advisor for the former NSW Minister of Ageing. Anita is a member of the Board of UnitingCare Ageing, the largest provider of aged care services in NSW.

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Kate Williams, Research Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Kathryn (Kate) Williams has qualifications in psychology and journalism. Since joining the CHSD on a part-time basis in 2004, Kate has contributed to a variety of projects, including literature reviews, health program and palliative care evaluation, the design and pilot testing of tools for priority setting and a catalogue of evidence-based strategies for the Best Start early intervention program.

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Joseph Carolan, Associate Research Fellow (email)

Joseph joined the Centre in June 2008 after completion of his studies in chemistry and statistics. He works in statistical analysis contributing to various projects including the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) and the Clinical Services Redesign Program.

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Pam Grootemaat, Associate Fellow (Health Services Research) (email)

Pam Grootemaat joined the CHSD on a full-time basis in July 2005. Pam previously worked in research and evaluation for mental health promotion. She has academic qualifications in nutrition and public health. Pam supports research projects in health system classification, policy and funding reform within health and community care services.

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Jodie Molinia, Associate Research Fellow (AROC) (email)

Jodie joined the CHSD in August 2008. Jodie is a registered nurse with experience in the ambulatory sector. Jodie will contribute to the role out of the AROC ambulatory dataset.

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Jason Sargent, Research Assistant (Health Informatics) (email)

Jason is a full-time research assistant funded by the ARC working on the ePOC ARC Linkage grant.

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Cheryl Blissett, Administrative Officer (email)

Cheryl Blissett joined the CHSD in March 2006 and is an Administration Officer.  Cheryl is currently managing a number of specific administrative projects and also provides administrative support to the Business Manager and to various research projects within the Centre. 

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Julie de Clouet, FIM Manager & Adminstrative Support (AROC) (email)

Julie joined the CHSD in March 2007 as the FIM Manager, and also provides administrative support for AROC.

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Jing Chen, Web based reporting (AROC) (email)

Jing is employed by AROC to work on the design, build and support of AROC Online Services (AOS), a web based reporting system that automates the processes of data submission, auditing and reporting for over 100 rehabilitation facilities across Australia. AROC Online Services had its origins as a university assignment started by Jing and fellow students. AOS uses Tomcat server and SQL server.

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Alex Verdon, Receptionist/Administrative Assistant (email)

Alex joined the CHSD in March 2007 and provides both reception and administrative support for the Centre.

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Karen Ford, Administrative Assistant/Project Support (AROC) (email)

Karen joined the CHSD in July 2007 and provides both administrative and project support for the Centre.

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Rebecca Lewis, Administrative Assistant (email)

Rebecca joined the CHSD in August 2008 and provides general administrative assistance and specific project support.

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Emily Sansoni, Research Assistant (email)

Emily provides research support to AHOC. In particular, she assists with the completion of HRQOL and Health Outcomes measurement projects, as well as the writing and editing of manuscripts.

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Michael Tarn, Administrative Assistant (email)

Michael joined the CHSD in August 2008 and provides general administrative assistance and specific project support.

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Darcy Morris, Administrative Assistant/Project Support (email)

Darcy provides both administrative and project support for the Centre.

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