Keynote Speakers

International Speakers
Dr Andrew Bazemore Andrew Bazemore, MD, MPH, is the Assistant Director of the Robert Graham Center, a policy research center focused on primary care. Dr. Bazemore has longstanding research interests in policy and access to care for underserved populations both domestically and internationally, and on the application of geographic information systems to the study of the population health and health care, He honed these interests as a member of the Research Division and Director of the Global Health Program in the University of Cincinnati's Department of Family Medicine, where he completed residency and fellowship training and continues to serve as a part-time visiting professor. He also serves on faculty at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and Virginia Commonwealth University - where he see patients and teaches every week. Dr. Bazemore earned a B.A. degree from Davidson College, an M.D. degree from the University of North Carolina, and an M.P.H. degree from Harvard University.
Professor James Morone James A Morone is Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He is well known as an American scholar and a commentator on health politics and policy, and participation and morality in American politics. As well as his scholarly contributions, he is a regular contributor to The American Prospect and The London Review of Books and occasionally to the New York Times. He has regularly appeared before Congress - most recently during the orientation for newly elected members in January 2009. His most recent co-edited book is Wealthy, Healthy and Fair: the Politics of Health Care for a Good Society (2005). His earlier book, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American Society (2003) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.His latest book the Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office from Roosevelt to Bush will be published in 2009.
Professor Gert Westert Gert Westert is a professor of health services research at Tilburg University in The Netherlands (www.uvt.nl/people/g.p.westert). He served as editor of the 2006 and 2008 editions of the Dutch Health Care Performance Report at the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) in Bilthoven. Gert's background is medical sociology and research methodology/statistics. His PhD thesis was about variation in hospital use and explored the wide variation in medical practice and hospital stays. Topics of interest include health systems and health care performance; international comparisons; medical practice variation; disparities in use of health care resources and health. Westert is editor of the book "Morbidity, performance and quality in primary care (2006, Radcliffe; Oxford / Seattle ) and co-author of text books in the field of Public Health, Health Services Research, and Health Economics. He has published various papers on health services research in the past 15 years. He is member of the editorial committee of the International Journal for Quality in Health Care.
Terri Jackson Until her recent move to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Terri Jackson was an Associate Professor with the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health at the University of Queensland (ACERH UQ). Her major research interests focus on issues of technical efficiency in the provision of hospital-based care and in funding systems which make use of casemix adjustment. She is currently undertaking studies of the economics of adverse events in hospital care for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care; and she is a consultant to the Canadian Patient Safety Institute.
Colleen Floord Colleen M. Flood is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute for Health Services and Policy Research. She is also Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto and cross-appointed to the School of Public Policy and the Department of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. She is the author/editor of six books including Administrative Law in Context (Emond Montgomery, 2008) (co-edited with Lorne Sossin), Exploring Social Insurance: Can a Dose of Europe Cure Canadian Health Care Finance? (McGill-Queen’s, 2008) (co-edited with Mark Stabile and Carolyn Tuohy), Canadian Health Law and Policy (3rd edition) (co-edited with J. Downie & T. Caulfield) (LexisNexis, 2007), Just Medicare: What’s In, What’s Out, How We Decide (editor) (Toronto: UTP, 2006); Access to Justice, Access to Care: The Legal Debate over Private Health Insurance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005) (co-edited with Kent Roach and Lorne Sossin) and International Health Care Reform: A Legal, Economic and Political Analysis(Routledge: London, 2000).
Australia and New Zealand Speakers
Jackie Cumming Jacqueline Cumming is Director of the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC) at Victoria University of Wellington. She has extensive public policy experience, having worked for a number of New Zealand government policy organisations, including the Ministry of Health, prior to joining the HSRC. Jacqueline currently manages the work of the HSRC, working with 28 staff. She co-ordinates courses at Victoria University’s School of Government, on Health Policy and Monitoring and Evaluation, and supervises a number of PhD and Masters students. Her research interests are in priority setting, access to health services, primary health care and health systems reform, and evaluation. She has led a number of high profile projects in recent years, including a national evaluation of the Primary Health Care Strategy and is currently a member of the leadership team for a national evaluation of New Zealand’s Healthy Eating Healthy Action Strategy. She is currently president of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Professor Louisa Jorm Louisa Jorm is the Foundation Professor of Population Health at the University of Western Sydney. She also holds the part-time position of Research Director at the Sax Institute. She is an epidemiologist who prior to taking up her current post, spent more than 15 years in senior positions in public health policy and service roles. Her areas of expertise include data linkage, use of large administrative data and facilitating the policy and practice uptake of research. She is Chief Investigator of the Outcomes, Services, Policy for the Reproductive and Early year (OSPREY) capacity building program, which has been funded by the NHMRC ($2.2M) to build methods and capacity for the analysis of linked health datasets to answer policy-relevant questions about the health of mothers, babies and children. In her role at the Sax Institute, Professor Jorm leads the management team for the 45 and Up Study, Australia’s largest study of healthy ageing, which includes 260,000 participants aged 45 years and over from across NSW.
Deborah Roche Deborah brings to her role almost 20years experience across the health sector in New Zealand and internationally. Most recently, Deborah has been a Deputy Director at the Department of Health in the United Kingdom. In this role she has been involved in a range of strategic issues, including: regulation, mental health, reconfiguration of services, franchising and purchasing, and European Union and international health policy. Since 2003 Deborah has been a guest lecturer in health policy at the London School of Economics. Previously Deborah was head of the health and social care policy team at the Institute for Public Policy Research and a senior lecturer at St George’s Hospital Medical School in London. Prior to this Deborah worked as a physiotherapist in New Zealand and Australia. Deborah has published widely and regularly commentated in the media on health system and health policy issues. Deborah has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, a Master of Applied Science from the University of South Australia, a Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, and a Diploma in Physiotherapy from AIT.
Kees van Gool Kees van Gool is a Senior Research Officer and health economist at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation at the University of Technology, Sydney. He has extensive experience in international, national and regional health policy research. He has undertaken numerous research projects that have utilised a variety of administrative and survey data. He is a chief investigator on several NHMRC grants and is a regular contributor to the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Health Policy Monitor series. Kees has previously worked at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), NSW Health and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.
Dr Sharon Willcox Sharon Willcox is the Director of Health Policy Solutions, an independent health consulting company. In 2008 Sharon was one of ten people appointed to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission to develop a long-term health reform plan for the Australian health system. She was also involved in the previous health system review, the National Health Strategy, in the early 1990s. Sharon has over 25 years experience working in health public policy in government, the community sector and academia in Australia and the United States. Her background includes negotiating intergovernmental health financing agreements, improving public reporting on health system performance, and reforming health system governance, prevention, consumer participation and funding model development. Sharon was a 1999-2000 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, with her fellowship examining the role of report cards in consumer-focused regulation of private health insurance in the United States.

National Health and Medical Research Council
Professor Warwick Anderson Professor Warwick Anderson is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NHMRC. He brings to the position extensive experience in health research leadership and management. Professor Anderson obtained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of New England in 1968 and his PhD from the University of Adelaide in 1972. He then spent three postdoctoral years at the Harvard Medical School in the USA, before returning to the University of Sydney. Later he was appointed Deputy Director of the Baker Medical Research Institute and from 2001 to 2006 was Head of School of Biomedical Sciences at Monash University. He has published more than 150 scientific papers, primarily in integrative cardiovascular and renal physiology and high blood pressure, and has made significant contributions over many years to the community, research societies and numerous Boards and Committees. He was Chair of NHMRC’s Research Committee between 1997 and 2003. In January 2005 Professor Anderson was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to health and medical research through leadership roles with NHMRC, to the development of medical science at Monash University, and to hypertension and renal physiology research. In April 2006 the Minister for Health and Ageing appointed Professor Anderson as CEO of NHMRC. The five-year appointment commenced on 7 June 2006. Professor Anderson was born in Grafton, NSW, and attended Chatsworth Island Primary School and Maclean High School.
Professor Elim Papadakis Professor Elim Papadakis leads the Research Investment Branch. His prior appointments include those of Executive Director, Social Behavioural and Economic Sciences at the Australian Research Council and, at the Australian National University, Professor of Modern European Studies, Head of the School of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts, and Foundation Director of the National Europe Centre, the inaugural Europe Centre funded by the European Commission in Australasia. He has held appointments as Professor of Sociology and Head of Department at the University of New England and Research Fellow in Social Policy at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Professor Papadakis completed his doctorate in 1983 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of several influential studies and books on attitudes to welfare in Australia and the United Kingdom, and on environmental politics and policy. He is also a recipient of prizes for outstanding contributions to such journals as the International Journal of Public Opinion Research (Robert M Worcester Prize) and The Australian Journal of Political Science (Henry Mayer Prize). He has worked with researchers on international research projects and published with teams based in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom and the United States

Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy and Practice
Associate Professor Robin Gauld Robin Gauld is Associate Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, and was a 2008/09 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow based at Boston University. Past positions include lecturing and research posts at the University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong. Current research interests include comparative health policy, health system improvement, primary care, and health information technology. He has written over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and several books and chapters. His latest books are The New Health Policy (Open University Press, 2009) and Revolving Doors: New Zealand’s Health Reforms – the Continuing Saga (Institute of Policy Studies and Health Services Research Centre, 2009). Gauld holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Hong Kong, and a master’s degree with distinction from Victoria University of Wellington.
Dr Carolyn Hullick Dr Carolyn Hullick is a 2008-09 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is director of emergency medicine at John Hunter Hospital (JHH) and Greater Newcastle Acute Care Hospitals. As a Harkness Fellow she was placed in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, studying “Improving Care for Older People in the Emergency Department”. As ED Director, Hullick has developed and implemented an emergency services model to improve access and patient experiences in New South Wales. She worked as an Emergency Physician in Townsville prior to returning to Newcastle. Under her leadership, JHH ED was a recipient of the NSW Premier’s Public Sector Award Gold Medal for Delivering Better Services (2007) and silver medal for a Pre-Hospital Acute Stroke Triage System, as well as a Press-Ganey Success Story, Orlando, Florida (2005).
Dr Karen Luxford Karen Luxford, Ph.D., is General Manager of the National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre (NBOCC). At NBOCC, Karen has overseen the development, implementation and evaluation of a number of large national programs and projects in a range of cancer care areas, including a large-scale program promoting multidisciplinary care for cancer patients. Karen was a 2008-2009 Harkness Fellow in Healthcare Policy & Practice and studied US exemplar organizations focused on patient-centred care and the role of patient feedback in improving service quality. Karen’s interests include new models of care, patient care experience, promoting evidence-based best practice, and health services delivery. Karen's work has been published in government reports and in journals such as Cancer Causes and Control and the Medical Journal of Australia. She holds a Ph.D. in medical science from the University of Sydney.
Peter McNair Having completed a 2007-08 Harkness Fellowship, Peter McNair is the Clinical Epidemiologist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute. He was Senior Policy Analyst in the Funding Policy Unit of the Victorian Department of Human Services, and Clinical Epidemiologist to the Victorian Surgical Consultative Council’s Surgical Outcome Information Initiative, which he established with colleagues in 2007. His current work focuses on using inpatient funding policy along with clinical outcome information to improve health care quality in both the US and Australia. Recent publications (2009) in Medical Care and Health Affairs have both attracted editorial comment, and attention from the US Medicare Payment Advisory Committee. McNair holds a bachelor of nursing from Phillip Institute of Technology, master's degrees from Monash University (MPH.) and Latrobe University (MHS) and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland.

Keynote Speakers

International Speakers

Australia and New Zealand Speakers

National Health and Medical Research Council

Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy and Practice