History of APHCRI

The Research - Streams One to Six
APHCRI continues to grow
Contributors to APHCRI's success

The Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute was established at The Australian National University in 2003 as part of the Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.

The Institute was initially funded for five years with $15 million, $10 million of which was set aside to commission priority driven research in primary health care. This makes APHCRI one of the few organisations with responsibilities to both commission and conduct research.

The initial six month set up of APHCRI was led by Professor Ian Ring. In mid-2003 an interim team was established to guide the further formation of the Institute in line with the directions of the PHC RED strategy and funding agreement with the Department of Health and Ageing. The team developed governance arrangements for the virtual institute model, planned early research Streams and worked with the Department of Health and Ageing to produce the strategic plan. Professor Nicholas Glasgow, Dr Beverly Sibthorpe, Dr Susan Dovey and Professor Deborah Saltman made up this team.

Formal appointments to APHCRI were made at the end of 2003. These included Professor Glasgow as Foundation Director, Professor John Marley as Chair of the Research Advisory Board and the other RAB members.

In the first half of 2004 the APHCRI hub consolidated the virtual institute model and built staff capacity. Meetings were held around Australia with key primary health care stakeholders and research developed with the Department of Health and Ageing on primary health care system performance measurement. From 2005 the Institute continued to build the capacity of the staff at the Hub, including administrative and research staff and higher degree students. Streams of research have been continuously released since 2004.

The Research – Streams One to Thirteen

The Institute embarked on its first Stream of research with Stream One in 2004. This work examined the sustainability of primary health care programs that were already in place, using complex adaptive systems theory. The work looked at five programs around Australia covering mental health, indigenous health, rural health, a trial of smoking, nutrition, alcohol and physical activity and care and prevention for people living with HIV.

This stream of work was published on the website and in a special supplement of the Medical Journal of Australia in 2005.

Stream Two was seeding funding for researchers to develop APHCRI relevant questions which might become the focus of substantial research within Stream Three.

From this group, Stream Three was funded in 2005. These three-year studies are APHCRI's most ambitious to date. Four projects were funded which look at depression care in primary health care, self-help organisations, how GPs might help prevent adolescents indulging in ‘risky' behaviour, and practice nursing in Australia .

This work is due to be completed in 2008.

Stream Four was APHCRI's first foray into designing and implementing a uniquely Australian approach to “linkage and exchange”. This model has been championed by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation and brings policy advisers and researchers together throughout the research process to build relationships between the two groups, develop and refine the research, and facilitate knowledge transfer a adoption of that knowledge into policy and practice. This model gives policy advisers access to early research results. Stream Four was completed in 2006 and was considered a successful model by both researchers and policy advisers.

Stream Five developed from Streams One, Three and Four. The Stream offered Spokes involved in previous work to build on their research by reflecting on the ‘next steps' for that work. There were five projects funded in Stream Five and they will be published on the website in 2008.

Stream Six built on the experience of Stream Four, but focused on the topic of workforce in primary health care. Nine projects covered broad topics of nursing, mental health workforce, care of older Australians and how to optimise the primary health care workforce.

In 2007 the Institute added two more Streams – Stream Seven (the APHCRI travelling fellowships) and Stream Eight (the APHCRI/Robert Graham Center Visiting Fellowship). Stream Seven was a primary health care researcher capacity building program which invited early to mid-career researchers involved in earlier Streams to develop their work by undertaking international travel. The grants also enabled APHCRI research to be disseminated overseas and to build international collaborations with primary health care institutes and organisations around the world.

Stream Eight was a collaboration with the Robert Graham Center which developed from Professor Larry Green's time as a Visiting Fellow at APHCRI in 2005. The Visiting Fellowship enabled a young researcher or GP registrar to spend six weeks with the Robert Graham Center investigating a project of mutual interest to APHCRI and the Center. This is intended to be a continuing grant, awarded annually.

Stream Nine was the 2008 Robert Graham Center Visiting Fellowship, awarded to Dr Rachel Lee.

Stream Ten was a second round of travelling fellowships offered to mid-career researchers who participated in Workforce-related APHCRI projects. The grants further enabled APHCRI research to be disseminated overseas and assisted in building collaborations with international primary health care organisations.

Stream Eleven, the International Visiting Fellowships program, offered small grants to Australian groups to bring international experts in primary health care to Australia to enrich their work, conduct open seminars to enhance awareness of important issues, and make their expertise available to the Department of Health and Ageing.

Stream Twelve developed from Stream Six and Stream Four's workforce focused projects. It provided additional funding to previously funded spokes to build on their existing research and reflect on the future of that work. Stream Twelve is due to finish in 2009.

Seven projects were commissioned under Stream Thirteen to investigate the drivers of successful primary health care. Stream Thirteen will systematically identify, review and synthesize knowledge about the drivers of successful primary health care service delivery in Australia and develop practical policy options fit for use in the Australian context, and will be completed in late 2009.

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APHCRI continues to grow

At the end of 2007 APHCRI was awarded extension funding until the end of February 2010. This will enable further Streams of research to be developed while APHCRI undergoes evaluation in 2008.

In 2008 Professor Nicholas Glasgow stepped down as Director of the Institute. An Acting Director, Mr Robert Wells has been appointed until his position is filled.

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Contributors to APHCRI's success

Ian Ring

Professor Ring led APHCRI through the initial establishment of the Institute at ANU.

Nicholas Glasgow – Foundation Director

Professor Nicholas Glasgow ( MBChB , MD , FRNZGP, FRACGP, FAChPM) was Professor and Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at The Australian National University. A general practitioner by clinical discipline, he has held appointments within the University of Auckland , the University of the United Arab Emirates , the University of Sydney and The Australian National University. After completing his doctoral thesis examining the interface between primary and secondary care in a rapidly developing country his primary research interests have focused on asthma and respiratory health, drug and alcohol issues and the scholarship of teaching and learning. His experiences living in different countries and participating in different health systems inform his views on primary health care. These experiences significantly inform his approach to the research agenda of the Institute which focuses on health services research and the nexus between research evidence and policy formulation. He is a core member of the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee, participates regularly in review activities for the National Health and Medical Research Council and various journals, as well as being an internal and external examiner regularly for doctoral theses.

Beverly Sibthorpe – former Deputy Director

Dr Beverly Sibthorpe (NZRN, BA Hons, PhD) has experience in clinical practice, government policy and research. She has served on a number of Australian Government committees including the Divisions Evaluation Advisory Group and the Steering Committees for the Evaluation of the MBS Enhanced Primary Care Items and for Service Activity Reporting for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. She has also provided evaluation advice to government on a number of other sector reforms including after hours care and GP-hospital integration. She was the chief investigator for the GP-led Coordinated Care Trial in the ACT. She has also undertaken research on Divisions of General Practice, including their involvement in Aboriginal health. She is a member of the NH&MRC's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Working Committee. Her research interests revolve around the equity and sustainability of primary health care, with a particular focus on performance assessment.

Susan Dovey – Visiting Fellow

Associate Professor Susan Dovey (MPH, PhD) was the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute's first visiting fellow. She has 18 years of general practice health policy research experience - in practice-based research, patient safety and information technology management. Professor Dovey has been actively involved in research in New Zealand , the United Kindgom, and the United States and produced over 75 publications reporting original research in medical journals. She holds a concurrent appointment with the American Academy of Family Physicians in the Robert Graham Center : Policy Studies in Family Practice and Primary Care in Washington , DC , is Chair of the Linnaeus Collaboration and co-ordinates and supports quality-related research in primary care internationally. Professor Dovey is an active member of the North American Primary Care Research Group, the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA), and the Cochrane Collaboration's Effective Practice and Organisation of Care group.

Deborah Saltman – Interim team

Professor of General Practice at the University of Sydney , Professor Saltman was the facilitator of the PHCRED outcomes, co-morbidity, general practice and leadership. She has also held positions within the pharmaceutical industry as Clinical Research Physician and Medical Director. Internationally, she has been involved with primary health care (PHC) workforce restructuring in Eastern Europe (World Bank), PHC education in China (World Health Organization) and PHC health outcomes in Europe (European Science Union). She is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She has held a number of Chair positions including of Chairperson of the NSW Cancer Council. Professor Saltman is on the editorial boards of a number of international and local journals and has also published several books.

Elizabeth Kerr – Foundation Institute Manager

Ms Elizabeth Kerr (BA OFF MGT, GradDip AET) was the Institute Manager of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute. She had worked in research management in the University sector for eight years before joining APHCRI. As the Institute Manager, Elizabeth was responsible for the development and management of research commissioning systems and the research and administrative functions of the Institute. Elizabeth moved into an Institute Manager role at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology in 2008.

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