Images of single-use face masks have become synonymous with the COVID-19 pandemic, sparking conversations about the sustainability of our healthcare systems. In this episode, host Dr Renee Beale is joined by Dr Rebecca Patrick and Dr Mike Forrester from the Institute for Health Transformation to explore just how sustainable our current healthcare system is, and what can be done to improve it for the health of our future generations.

Rebecca is an executive member of the Institute’s Determinants of Health team where her research focus is climate change and health as well as sustainable healthcare, and Director of Deakin University’s Sustainable Healthcare Network.

Mike is a consultant paediatrician at Barwon Health, Vic Chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia, Clinical Lead of the Deakin Sustainable Healthcare Network and Senior Research Fellow at IHT.

In this episode, host Dr Renee Beale is joined by Associate Professor Kathryn Backholer and Ruby Brooks from the Institute for Health Transformation’s Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) to delve into Kathryn and Ruby’s research on junk food advertising.

A recent study led by Kathryn and Ruby demonstrated how junk food companies have turned to platforms such as TikTok to turn children into brand ambassadors for their products. Together, Renee, Kathryn and Ruby unpack the study’s findings and discuss an upcoming study that will use world-first technology to quantify exactly how much harmful advertising children see and engage with online.

In this episode, host Dr Renee Beale is joined by Professor Linda Sweet and Dr Sara Holton from the Institute for Health Transformation’s Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research. Together, they discuss findings from their research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Australia’s healthcare workers and students, the expansion of this work internationally, and how Australia can get better at monitoring its healthcare staff and sectors.

Sara Holton’s recent study saw researchers from the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research partner with Western Health to investigate the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. The study was the first of its kind in Australia and has since expanded to 4 other health services in Victoria, Australia and one in Denmark.

Linda Sweet’s team at the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research partnered with researchers from across Australia to learn about peoples’ experiences receiving or providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, host Dr Renee Beale is joined by Alfred Deakin Professor Catherine Bennett and Associate Professor Hassan Vally from the Institute for Health Transformation’s Determinants of Health team. Together, they unpack Australia’s recent Omicron wave, reflect on their experiences as science communicators during the pandemic and discuss the role of social media in science communication.

Catherine and Hassan have spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to public discourse, media, social media and governmental reviews that have shaped the legacy of the pandemic. They have contributed to more than 20,000 media items since the beginning of the pandemic.

Catherine writes regularly for a number of publications, including The Guardian, The Conversation and The Age. To hear more from Catherine, follow her on LinkedIn.

Hassan is also a regular media contributor; you can find his articles on The Conversation and The Age. Follow Hassan on Twitter for more information.

This episode was recorded on 16 August 2022, and published on 20 September 2022. 

“One of the lessons out of what we’ve been through is the need for an independent body that brings together public health expertise from across the country and supports government at all levels in its public health response.”

She’s been the voice of reason and a sought-after expert by the media during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing facts over opinion and education and reassurance for the general public, while becoming something of a celebrity in the process.

In this timely episode, recorded halfway through the second year of the pandemic, Professor Catherine Bennett and Kate Morrissy, Executive Officer at the Institute for Health Transformation, discuss Australia’s public health response to the pandemic so far, the need for a national public health body, our vaccine rollout, and the importance of taking time to evaluate our response so we can move forward with evidence-based confidence.

“We have collected so much data and we must invest in the research we need to do to fully understand where we’ve been without fear or favour,” Catherine says.

“This isn’t blaming; this is saying we didn’t have that evidence at the time, this is what we did and we kept doing the same because we weren’t looking at that evidence as we went. That’s not the error – the error is if we never get to it, if we never do that evaluation work. I think that’s the gift to future generations: learning as much as we can out of what we’ve been through.”

Professor Catherine Bennett is the inaugural Chair of Epidemiology at Deakin University and head of Deakin Epidemiology, a research unit within the Institute for Health Transformation’s Determinants of Health research domain. She is a leading researcher and teacher in public health, with a specific interest in infectious disease epidemiology and community transmission.

Catherine joined Deakin in 2009 after more than eight years with the University of Melbourne as Associate Professor in Epidemiology, Deputy Chair of the Academic Programs Committee in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, and Director of Population Health Practice in the Melbourne School of Population Health. Prior to that, Catherine worked with the New South Wales and Victorian State Governments in a variety of senior positions, including Olympic Public Health Coordinator for Northern Sydney. Catherine is also founding Chair and President of the Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australia.

The failings of Australia’s aged care system have been laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic and much has been said and written about how it can – and must – be improved. Recorded pre-COVID-19 this episode of Healing Health discusses Alison’s research into partnership-centred care and how it offers a positive way forward in how we care for our elderly and better value aged-care staff.

“Partnership-centred care in the context of aged care puts the older person at the centre of the care-planning process, with family members and staff working together to support the older person to ensure their needs and preferences are met,” Alison says.

Alfred Deakin Professor Alison Hutchinson is Chair in Nursing and Director of the Centre for Nursing Research – Deakin University and Monash Health Partnership and Co-Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research (QPS) in Deakin’s Institute for Health Transformation. As one of Australia’s leading Nursing Professors, Alison’s research centres on how research is translated to improve care within hospitals, aged care facilities, other health providers and within homes.

 She has a particular interest in how organisational structure and interdisciplinary interaction influence the uptake of research findings by health professionals and has developed a short online course to support those caring for older family members, and another for new parents on infant nutrition. She was also lead educator for Caring for Older People: a Partnership Model, which recognised that looking after an older person can be a challenging experience for family members, friends, care staff and health professionals alike.

In July 2021, Alison was inducted into the Sigma Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.

Unhealthy diet contributes hugely to the burden of preventable disease in Australia, like heart disease – our number one killer – Type 2 diabetes and several cancers. Two thirds of Australians are considered overweight or obese, which puts them at higher risk of these diseases. If we can take steps to improve our diets and reduce obesity, we can improve our health.

But if we’re going to address the problem of obesity, Gary says, “we need a whole of society approach. We’re going to need governments to take some action, we’re going to need food companies to take some action, as well the community taking action.”

Join Amber and Gary as they discuss Gary’s research into how seriously our biggest food companies take the obesity epidemic and shine the spotlight on the role they could play in preventing obesity.

Associate Professor Gary Sacks is a Victorian Young Tall Poppy 2020 and a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow with the Institute’s Global Obesity Centre. His research focuses on policies for the prevention of obesity and related diseases. Gary co-founded INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity / non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support) – a global network for monitoring food environments and leads the component of INFORMAS dedicated to monitoring the actions of food companies in relation to obesity prevention and population nutrition. He also leads the Australian Food Environments Dashboard, launched in June 2021, which brings together for the first time the most up-to-date data from research institutions and government departments to describe the healthiness of Australia’s food environments.

Health economics, at least the model that Professor Rob Carter talks about, isn’t only about  money. It’s also about the kind of communities we want to live in and what we decide to prioritise. Do we want everyone to access to a certain level of healthcare based on need, or on what they can afford? And how do we make those decisions?

“I was a bureaucrat before I was an academic, and what I thought was missing was economic advice provided in a way that was useful,” Rob says. “There are all sorts of ways in which governments make decisions, but how do we decide which are the best ways and the best decisions?

“We try to help decision makers work out how they can improve the relationship between costs and outcomes.”

Join Rob and Amber for a wide-ranging discussion that’s not all about economics, but takes a deeper look at how what our society values affects what role the government plays in healthcare and how we decide what health prevention interventions are important and who should pay for them.

Emeritus Professor Rob Carter is widely recognised for his expertise in the economic appraisal of health care services and priority setting, particularly in the area of health promotion, health technology assessment and pharmacoeconomics. Much of his evaluation work over the years has encouraged clinicians to work with policy-makers and academics to tackle important public health issues. In recent years, he has developed and implemented an innovative approach to priority setting that is bridging the gap between academic rigour and applied policy-making in major areas of public health, with a strong focus on knowledge transfer. His evaluation work on the initial Assessing Cost Effectiveness (ACE) study in cancer, for example, impacted on Australia’s national cancer strategy and contributed to the funding of subsequent ACE studies in heart disease, mental health, obesity prevention and the prevention of non-communicable disease.

“People go to hospital to be cared for and improve their health. Preventable adverse events, medical errors or harm unrelated to their illness is not expected, nor acceptable,” Tracey says.

A landmark Australian study revealed that 25 per cent of patients who were harmed in hospital were permanently disabled and the main cause of those events was a failure by health professionals to recognise and act on available information.

Join Tracey and Amber as they examine the complex decision making that takes place in busy hospital environments and discuss how understanding how health professionals and patients make decisions may lead to improving the decision-making process and reduce the risk of harm to patients.

Alfred Deakin Professor Tracey Bucknall is Chair in Nursing at Alfred Health, Melbourne. Her research concentrates on understanding how individuals make decisions routinely and in uncertainty and on understanding the environmental and social influences in healthcare. She focusses especially on patient safety, symptom management across clinical settings, and the implementation of research evidence into practice to improve patient outcomes.

MyStay is a multimedia tool developed with clinicians and patients to enhance patient involvement in their own care and evaluation shows it works, with patients experiencing lower pain intensity and less time in hospital after surgery.

“We need to enhance patients’ capability to participate by providing clear, unambiguous information about how they can participate in their pain management and recovery and we need to provide opportunities to do so through effective patient and clinician interactions,” Mari says.

MyStay delivers interactive information to patients, explaining what to expect post-surgery and how patients can participate in their own care. From the first day of surgery, patients can use the program to access information about their goals for the day, and how they can manage their pain, keep safe and prepare for discharge.

“There is an expectation that health services involve consumers in their own care and recovery but it’s actually not that easy in acute care,” Mari points out.

“While it’s been a mainstay of chronic illness management that people are participants in managing their illness, in acute health we tend to do things to people, rather than with them.

“The key challenge for researchers is how to help clinicians to implement solutions within the culture of care delivery in acute care settings.”

Join Mari and Amber as they explore the complexity of pain management in acute care settings and how recovery after surgery can be enhanced through innovative technology.

Alfred Deakin Professor Mari Botti AM is Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research at Epworth HealthCare. Her research interests cross a number of clinical practice domains, with a particular focus on pain management, symptom management, quality and safety of care and clinical outcomes in acute care settings. She is lead investigator in a program of research focused on models of care delivery that encourage patient and family engagement in their care, safety and wellbeing. A key element of this work is the development of the MyStay modules. These modules are surgery-specific, multimedia, web-based modules that facilitate patient participation in their care and recovery after surgery.

The economics of health care systems have become increasing important in the past 25 years as we battle with the problem of making sure everyone has access to appropriate care, while ensuring every dollar spent results in the best possible outcomes.

“Every dollar spent on something which has less impact on people’s health is a dollar that could actually have saved lives elsewhere,” says Associate Professor Martin Hensher.

But over-consumption of health care isn’t just a question of wasted resources. Unnecessary care exposes patients to the inherent ‘downside’ risks of adverse events, injury and even death – without them gaining any ‘upside” benefit’. And every instance of unnecessary care also causes environmental damage – through greenhouse gas emissions, chemical pollution, and the use of non-renewable resources – again without delivering any real benefit to the patient.

Join Martin in this wide-ranging episode as he explores the causes and forces behind over-diagnosis and over-medication and explains why health economists have a vital role to play in ensuring that everyone can have access to the ‘right care’ when they actually need it, while reducing avoidable harms, conserving resources, and minimising the environmental harms of health care.

Martin Hensher is Associate Professor of Health System Financing and Organisation at Deakin Health Economics within the Institute for Health Transformation. He has worked as a public servant and economic adviser to health departments in Australia, the United Kingdom and South Africa and his research interests include health care financing, health care systems and the macro-economy, and transforming the organisation of health care.

In the past 30 years, the rates of childhood overweight and obesity have risen alarmingly. With research showing obesity is difficult to reverse, and evidence building about the consequent chronic disease burden on individuals and society, Professor Steve Allender is on an urgent mission to save our children from a lifetime of poor health.

“Obesity is a marker for a lot of other important things, like what we eat, how much we eat, our activity levels, how well we sleep, our social relationships and a pointer for a whole lot of other health risks,” he points out.

As head of one of the largest research groups in Australia dedicated to obesity prevention, Steve believes solving the problem lies in empowering communities to create healthy environments to live in.

“Rates of overweight and obesity haven’t increased over time because individual decision-making has changed radically,” he says. “They’ve increased over time because the social conditions in which people are making decisions about activity and food are changing and make it much harder for us to make healthy choices.

“What we currently have is a situation where unhealthy is normal and conditions are set against the healthy thing being the easy thing. But we know that when everybody in a community is pushing really hard in the same direction to improve the health of their kids, the kids get healthier.”

Professor Steve Allender is a Professor of Population Health and Director of the Global Obesity Centre (GLOBE), a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation. He leads a team of researchers focused on applying innovative approaches from systems science to community based obesity prevention and has a particular interest in the emerging burden of chronic disease in developing countries and the possibilities for using complex systems methodologies in community based interventions.

In Australia, the number of adults living with obesity increased from one in ten in 1980, to one in three in 2019 – with similar increases in kids. While most of us want the best chance at health, we’re often at the mercy of powerful food environments – like supermarkets, or the local cafe – many of which get in the way of us making the healthier choices.

In this first episode of the Healing Health podcast, Professor Anna Peeters, Director of Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation, talks about how research into Australia’s food environments shows we can improve the healthiness of diets across our entire population – without food retailers taking a financial hit.

“Current food environments really drive us to buy or consume unhealthy options over healthy options, so that even though we know eating healthier is good for us, in reality it’s hard to do,” Anna says.

“But we know that the more you normalise healthy food options, the easier it becomes for people to choose them.”

“Supermarkets, fast food giants, the café at a health service all have a role to play in helping people choose a healthy diet over an unhealthy diet and evidence shows that food retailers can push healthy options without affecting their bottom line.”

A Professor of Epidemiology and Equity in Public Health at Deakin University, Anna is the lead investigator in the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Food Retail Environments for Health (RE-FRESH). She also sits on a number of national and international policy and research advisory groups, including for the World Cancer Research Fund.

Imagine our health systems were people. Right now, they’d probably be feeling sick, overwhelmed and stressed.

Presented by Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation, ‘Healing Health’ explores some of the biggest issues facing our health systems and the best ways to deliver care.

Each episode highlights the different work being done locally to transform how we deliver prevention and care globally. Join host Amber Petty and some of Australia’s leading health researchers as they explore various cures for the ills of healthcare and discover that recovery is not just possible – it’s already happening.