National Collaborative Projects

The Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA) runs five Steering Committees, made up of representatives from the 11 NHMRC-accredited Research Translation Centres (RTC) and three emerging Research Translation Centres. These sub-committees have unique goals responding to separate priorities which AHRA and the Australian Department of Health have deemed ‘National Systems Level Initiatives’. These priorities are:

The AHRA Centres are funded to support these National Collaborative Projects through the Medical Research and Future Fund (MRFF). The purpose of this research funding is to:

  • Improve patient experience by improving care pathways and service connections
  • Reduce unwarranted variation in healthcare and patient outcomes
  • Improve the health of certain at risk groups in Australia, such as Indigenous Australians
  • Public health interventions with targeted research to test innovative public health approaches to addressing modifiable risk factors which are at the heart of the rise of chronic and complex disease prevalence and persistence
  • Primary care research addressing the capacity and production gap in primary care research with an emphasis on multidisciplinary, adaptive research methodologies and clinician capability support

WAHTN co-leads the CCI initiative with Sydney Health Partners and current work focuses on four priority areas:

  1. Developing a handbook with practical steps to guide stakeholders and organisations in embedding CCI in health and medical research (Lead:  Western Australian Health Translation Network)
  2. Establishing a knowledge hub that brings ideas, knowledge, tools, research and activities together in a central online space (Leads: Monash Partners, SPHERE)
  3. Identifying and testing approaches that show if involving consumers in health research makes a difference, and the kinds of effects it has in different research settings (Leads: Sydney Health Partners, Health Translation SA, NSW Regional Health Partners)
  4. Establishing an International CCI Alliance with international agencies that promote consumer and community involvement in health research such as INVOLVE in the United Kingdom, Patient Centred Outcomes Research Institute in the United States, and Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, an initiative of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. (Leads:  Western Australian Health Translation Network, Melbourne Academic Centre for Health)

WAHTN co-leads the Wound Care Initiative with Health Translation Queensland, in partnership with Wounds Australia and focuses on four projects:

  1. Determine the actual (not modelled) costs of wound care based on best practice-best product (Lead: Western Australian Health Translation Network)
  2. Update the 2016 National Wound Care Standards to include new guidelines and a self-audit tool (Lead Western Australian Health Translation Network)
  3. Develop an integrated Training and Education Framework (Leads: Monash Partners, Health Translation Queensland)
  4. Plan for a coordinated program of research excellence (Leads: Health Translation Queensland, Health Translation SA)

 

National Network

AHRA have initiated a number of Networks which bring together expertise from across all centres in response to national gaps in implementation or research translation into policy and practice in broad areas which have been deemed by ARHA to be of strategic importance. These are: