Health Services Research / Implementation Science
Health services research is a multidisciplinary field that aims to build evidence about the organisation, delivery, financing and outcomes of health and care services to inform policy and practice
About this theme
Zooming in on the delivery of care, Implementation Science is the scientific study of methods to promote the uptake of research findings into routine practice in health and social care. What we do matters now more than ever. The Australian Government vision is better health and wellbeing for all Australians, now and for future generations. If we are to realise this vision, Health, social care and aged care services need to evolve to meet new patterns of ill health, demand and opportunities from new treatments and technologies.
Health services research (HSR) studies address the planning, distribution, organisation, provision, quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and outcome of health care services. HSR researchers in the School of Health Sciences are conducting research across a wide variety of clinical areas, to discover new and effective clinical and therapeutic interventions.
Implementation scientists in the School investigate implementation problems (evidence-practice gaps in care). Whether the care gaps involve established practices (such as over-prescribing of antibiotics or over-transfusing of blood products) or new and emerging interventions (such as pre-habilitation for people prior to cancer surgery or empowerment therapies for people with psychosis), changing practice is difficult and often needs support. Implementation researchers also investigate inappropriate variations in care with the aim of reducing health inequalities.
Not all implementation strategies work, so to avoid wasted time and effort, we need to build a theory-informed evidence base to discover effective strategies for closing care gaps. Our vision is to enhance health outcomes, reduce health inequalities and improve health service users’ experience of care.
Meet our researchers in health services research and implementation science
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School of Health Sciences
Prof Jill Francis
Professor in Implementation Science | Specialising in behavioural approaches to implementation science, a field which aims to identify the most effective ways to support changes in healthcare practice to improve health care and health outcomesjillian.francis@unimelb.edu.au -
Audiology and Speech Pathology
Dr Elaina Kefalianos
Course Coordinator, Senior LecturerEducation and Research
elaina.kefalianos@unimelb.edu.au -
Nursing
Dr Rebecca Jarden
Lecturer | Research areas include nurse wellbeing and critical carerebecca.jarden@unimelb.edu.auMs Polly Dufton
Lecturer, Course Coordinator Graduate Certificate in Cancer Nursing | Research areas include health services research, emergency department utilisation, cancer nursingpolly.dufton@unimelb.edu.auProf Denise Harrison
Professor | Research areas include infant and child health, implementation science, families as partners in caredeniseh@unimelb.edu.auProf Marie Gerdtz
Professor and Head of Department | Research areas include emergency and critical care nursinggerdtzmf@unimelb.edu.au -
Optometry and Vision Sciences
A/Prof Laura Downie
Associate Professor and Dame Kate Campbell Fellow | Research areas include ocular diagnostics and therapeutics, tear biomarkers, clinical trials and research translation.ldownie@unimelb.edu.auDr Marianne Coleman
Orthoptist, Clinical Vision Research Fellow | Research areas include Digital Health, Childrens Vision, Public Eye Health, Eyecare across the Lifespan, Binocular Vision.marianne.coleman@unimelb.edu.auDr Ceecee Britten-Jones
Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Optometrist | Research interests include inherited retinal diseases, ocular imaging, gene therapy trials, and evidence synthesis.ac.brittenjones@unimelb.edu.auDr Sumeer Singh
Postdoctoral Clinical Research Fellow | Research areas include dry eye disease, blue light and ocular health, evidence synthesis and translational research.sumeer.singh@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Bang Bui
Assoc. Professor | Research areas include preclinical investigation of vision and the retinal vasculature in healthy ageing; mechanisms of age-related susceptibility to neurodegeneration.bvb@unimelb.edu.auDr Bao Nguyen
Lecturer, optometrist and human visual neuroscientist | Research areas include understanding eye and brain changes with healthy and pathological ageing, childhood and adolescent development, vision anomalies in ophthalmic and neurological disorders.bnguyen@unimelb.edu.au
Senuri Karunaratne
Clinical Research Optometrist | Research areas include management of dry eye disease, childhood myopia and developement of myopia control devices.senuri.karunaratne@unimelb.edu.auAnna Lee
Senior Clinical Research Optometrist | Research areas include anterior ocular disease, therapeutic clinical trials and research translation.ji-hyun.lee@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Ekaterina Levichkina
Research Fellow | Research areas include Neural mechanisms of visual attention and predictive coding; visual perception; sleep research.ele@unimelb.edu.au -
Physiotherapy
Dr Kade Paterson
NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Dame Kate Campbell Senior Research Fellow | Research includes lower limb biomechanics of walking and running, and the clinical and biomechanical effects of foot-based interventions for musculoskeletal conditionskade.paterson@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Catherine Granger
Associate Professor and Dame Kate Campbell Fellow | Research areas include exercise and physical activity for patients with lung cancer, other cancers, critical illness and respiratory diseasescatherine.granger@unimelb.edu.auDr Lara Edbrooke
Lecturer | Research areas include health services research, multi-disciplinary models of allied health care for people with cancer, measurement of physical activitylarae@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Jane Fitzpatrick
Honorary | Research areas include Sport and Exercise Medicine, tendinopathy and osteoarthritisjane.fitzpatrick@unimelb.edu.auDr Kate Hayward
Senior Research Fellow | Research areas include the brain-behaviour nexus during rehabilitation after strokekate.hayward@unimelb.edu.auDr Stephanie Filbay
NHMRC Research Fellow | Research expertise includes anterior cruciate ligament injury and knee osteoarthritis outcomes and interventionsstephanie.filbay@unimelb.edu.auProf David Berlowitz
Chair in Physiotherapy at Austin Health | Research areas include sleep and breathing disorders in neuromuscular disease, health systems and data research, clinical trials of therapies and care modelsdjberl@unimelb.edu.auDr Natalie Fini
Senior Lecturer, Post-Doctoral Researcher | Research areas include physical activity after neurological injury, stroke recovery and rehabilitationnatalie.fini@unimelb.edu.auDr Michelle Hall
Senior Research Fellow, NHMRC Emerging Leader, Dame Kate Campbell Fellow | Research areas include osteoarthritis. exercise, biomechanics; meta-analyses, clinical trialshalm@unimelb.edu.auProf Rana Hinman
Research areas include improving the health of people with chronic musculoskeletal conditions, especially osteoarthritis, implementation science, and increasing access to care, including telerehabilitation and digital healthranash@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Fiona Dobson
Deputy Head of Physiotherapy | Research areas include exercise for chronic musculoskeletal conditions, hip & knee osteoarthritis, outcome measurement, meta-analysisfdobson@unimelb.edu.auDr Thorlene Egerton
Senior Lecturer | Research focus is on design of models of health service delivery to implement evidence-based practice for osteoarthritis and other chronic conditionsthorlene.egerton@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Helena Frawley
Associate Professor | Research expertise in expertise in women’s health, specifically disorders related to the pelvic floorh.frawley@unimelb.edu.auProf Alicia Spittle
Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences | Her research interest include infant and child development, early intervention, parent well-being, consumer engagement and implementation scienceaspittle@unimelb.edu.auProf Gavin Williams
Professor of Physiotherapy Rehabilitation | Research areas include neurological gait disorders, running, task-specific strength training and focal spasticity managementgavinw@unimelb.edu.auDr Kelly Bower
Lecturer | Research areas include stroke rehabilitation, balance training, falls prevention, motion-tracking technologies and telehealthbower@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Abbey Eeles
Research Fellow | Research areas include the impact of developmental therapy and early intervention on brain development and rehabilitation in the newborn period and beyond, and the role parents play in delivering this interventionabbey.eeles@unimelb.edu.auDr Rachel Toovey
Lecturer | Research areas including paediatrics, disability and inclusive participation in physical activityr.toovey@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Cathy Said
A/Professor Physiotherapy Western Health | Research interests include rehabilitation and fall prevention in older people and people with neurological disorderscsaid@unimelb.edu.auProf Kim Bennell
Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, NHMRC Investigator Fellow and Dame Kate Campbell Fellow. Director of the Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine | Research focus is on the management of musculoskeletal conditions particularly osteoarthritisk.bennell@unimelb.edu.auDr Belinda Lawford
Research Assistant | Areas of research include telehealth and implementation of health services to help improve the lives of those with chronic musculoskeletal pain (e.g. osteoarthritis)belinda.lawford@unimelb.edu.au -
Social Work
Dr Lyndal Hickey
Research Fellow | Research areas include policy, program and practice implementation to improve the lives of people living with disability, and their families in their communitieshickeyl@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof David Rose
Associate Professor in Social Work, Director of Learning and Teaching, MSHS | Research areas include impact of criminal justice system, trauma and mental health, alcohol and other drugs, domestic & family violence, children and families across borders and health/mental health in forensic systemsdrose@unimelb.edu.auProf Lynette Joubert
Professor - Direct Practice | Research areas include clarifying, measuring and evaluating the outcomes of social interventions in health and mental health, focusing on the contribution of formal and informal social network factorsljoubert@unimelb.edu.auDr Jennifer Davidson
Course Coordinator, MSW | Research areas include navigating complex service systems, disability and the NDIS, social work in the legal and justice systems and the impact of social policy on health and wellbeingjennifer.davidson@unimelb.edu.auA/Prof Kristin Diemer
Associate Professor | kNOwVAWdata; safe, ethical and inclusive measurement of violence against women and children with a focus in Asia and the Pacifick.diemer@unimelb.edu.auDr Gemma McKibbin
Research fellow | Specialises in interviews with children and young people about sensitive issues like child sexual abuse and family violence. Interested in research collaborations that benefit the health and social lives of children and young people in Australia and across the globegemma.mckibbin@unimelb.edu.auProf Cathy Humphreys
Professor | Dedicated to optimising the health of all family members where there is domestic and family violencecathy.humphreys@unimelb.edu.auDr Margaret Kertesz
Post Doctoral Research Fellow | Research Interests include intervention responses at the intersections between child abuse, domestic violence, mental health and problematic substance use, approaches that promote recovery post-violence and interventions for women who use force in the context of family violencemkertesz@unimelb.edu.au