OPTIMAS-GP

Professor Andrew Bonney

Roberta Williams Chair of Practice Chief investigator

Professor Bonney MBBS (Hons) MFM (Clin) PhD FRACGP has over 30 years’ experience as a general practitioner on the south coast of NSW and is Director of GPREN. He is Associate Head of School Research Strategy for the GSM. He was appointed as the Roberta Williams Chair and foundation Professor of General Practice at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in 2011. His research interests are implementation of evidence-based medical care and quality improvement in general practice. He is recognised nationally and internationally for promoting general practice research through Practice Based Research Networks.

Dr Colin Cortie

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (Rural Medical Education Outcomes) Trial Coordinator

Dr Cortie is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Graduate School of Medicine and is the trial coordinator for the OPTIMAS GP implementation trial. Colin has broad research experience in the areas of lipid biochemistry, aging and clinical trials and has expertise in advanced statistics, clinical trial design and implementation, database creation and centralised data collection and monitoring, survey design, health workforce planning, and analysis of big data datasets.

Professor Judy Mullan

Associate Head of School Research

Professor Judy Mullan is the Director of the Centre for Health Research Illawarra Shoalhaven Population (CHRISP) and the Deputy Director of the Illawarra & Southern Practice Research Network (ISPRN). She is an experienced academic, researcher and clinician with over 35 years’ experience as a registered pharmacist. Since joining UOW, she has established national and international research collaborations, published four book chapters, contributed to over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and delivered over 100 national/international conference presentations.

She has been the recipient of two national teaching awards and is nationally and internationally renowned for her research in chronic disease and safe medication management, deprescribing and health literacy.

Dr Christine Metusela

Senior Lecturer Public Health

Dr Metusela is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health in the Graduate School of Medicine at UOW with a PhD in social science. As a qualitative and mixed methods researcher her main research interests are in public health and primary care, including health services research, health literacy, Indigenous health, and migrant sexual and reproductive health.

Dr Fiona Williams

Senior Lecturer General Practice

Dr Williams MBChB, FRACGP, MRCGP, DFFP, DRCOG, Grad Cert Med Ed, MIDI, has over 20 years experience as a GP in the Illawarra. She was the Regional Academic Leader for the Illawarra for the Graduate School of Medicine for over 10 years and has recently been appointed as Senior Lecturer in General Practice. She has a particular interest in Infectious Diseases, Public Health and GP wellbeing. 

Senior Professor Simon Eckermann

Health Economist

Simon Eckermann is Senior Professor of Health Economics at the Australian Health Services Research Institute, Sydney Business School and the University of Wollongong. His original research and international collaborations have established missing links between optimal decision making in research, reimbursement and regulation in practice and are extensively published in the highest impact health economics and decision making Journals, and clinical and policy journals along with his applied research. He is a CI on competitive research grants totalling more than A$25 million and undertakes guideline revision and health economics educational activities for National and International decision-making bodies.

Professor Marjka Batterham

Statistician

Associate Professor Marijka Batterham is the Director of the Statistical Consulting Centre at the University of Wollongong. A/Prof Batterham is an Accredited Statistician with extensive experience in the design and analysis of many different types of clinically based projects in both hospital-based and community settings including parallel arm and clustered randomised trials and stepped wedge designs in addition to observational and cross-sectional studies. Her main focus has been on the design and analysis of lifestyle-based studies and handling missing data and attrition.

Miss Cassarn Monroe

Administration Officer (Rural Research and General Practice)

Miss Monroe assists with the administration of rural and primary care research at GSM. While new to the Graduate School of Medicine, Cassarn has spent six years at the University of Wollongong, supporting the Faculty of Business and Law across departments including Accounting, Economics and Finance, Management, Operations, Marketing, and Law.

Ms Mary Burns

Research Officer

Ms Burns is the research officer on the OPTIMAS GP implementation trial. Mary holds a BSc. (Psych, Hons), is a final year PhD student and has over 10 years of experience with mix methods and qualitative research in public health. She has expertise in co-design and participatory research in the development and evaluation of health and psychosocial interventions for children, adolescents and adults.

Professor Grant Russell

Professor Grant Russell is a primary care clinician and health services researcher. He is the Professor of Primary Care Research and Director of the Southern Academic Primary Care Research Unit (SAPCRU) within the Department of General Practice at Monash University. After completing training in 1989, he worked in general practice in Perth prior to leaving for Canada in 2005 to work at the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Canada. His research program is directed towards understanding and measuring the impact of primary care reform on patients, clinicians and general practices. He has been responsible for over 100 peer-reviewed publications and over $8,000,000 of research funding as a principal investigator.

Professor Danielle Mazza

Professor Danielle Mazza is the Head of the Department of general practice and holds the Chair of General Practice at Monash University. Her major interest is in translational research, with particular focus on closing evidence-practice gaps in preventive care, women's sexual and reproductive health, and cancer screening and guideline development and implementation using patient-based strategies. During the course of her career, she has attracted over 3 million dollars in competitive funding as a chief investigator and has 48 publications in international and national refereed journals (34 as the first author). She is the author of the textbook 'Women's health in general practice', which is a recommended text for the RACGP's core curriculum. Danielle has methodological expertise in guideline development and the implementation, development, and trial of complex interventions.

Associate Professor Jan Radford

Chief Investigator

Jan Radford is Associate Professor of General Practice at the University of Tasmania based in Launceston. Associate Professor Radford has worked as a GP in the same practice for 32 years and has a long history in curriculum development, delivery and assessment in medicine ranging from undergraduate to postgraduate training. She is Deputy Associate Head of the Launceston Clinical School and has developed a practice-based research network within northern Tasmanian general practices. She is currently a PhD candidate as well as provost of the RACGP Tasmania faculty, a member of the RACGP’s research and HANDI committees, current chair of the GP-North (Division of General Practice-northern Tasmania), and a member of Primary Health Tasmania’s clinical governance council. She is a 2017 Churchill Fellow.

Professor Gregory Peterson

Investigator

As Professor of Pharmacy and former Head of Pharmacy at the University of Tasmania,  Professor Peterson has held a personal Chair at the University of Tasmania since 2000, awarded on the basis of his research and teaching excellence. Prof Peterson has led many state and national projects directed at improving the use of medications and patient outcomes in both community and hospital sectors. He is also Director of Health Services Innovation, School of Medicine. Prof Peterson has an international standing and record of accomplishment in the area of programs to promote the safe, rational and cost-effective use of medications. He has more than 450 papers published in refereed international and national journals and has been an editor/chapter contributor for 12 books. His research has received over $38M of external funds.

Professor Nick Zwar

Professor Nick Zwar is a general practitioner, primary health care teacher and researcher. Professor Zwar is Executive Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Adjunct Professor of General Practice, School of Population Health at UNSW Australia. He has a national and international reputation in health services research on the prevention and management of chronic illness, with a focus on respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Over the course of his academic career, Prof Zwar has maintained involvement in clinical practice, working part-time as a general practitioner for over 30 years.