Australia would benefit from academic health science centres
Despite strong advocacy for academic health science centres (AHSCs) to be introduced in Australia, they have been ignored, according to an article in the Medical Journal of Australia.
An AHSC is a partnership between a tertiary health care provider and a university. Together they drive a care continuum from innovation, to bedside, to the community, aiming to deliver the latest advances and highest standards to patients.
Prof Nicholas Fisk, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland, and co-authors, examined why AHSCs had not been introduced and potential issues associated with the introduction of AHSCs to Australia.
Prof Fisk said that there was a cultural clash between Federally funded autonomous universities, and State-funded hospitals managed as separate conglomerates and subject to local politics and regional priorities, which would have to be overcome for AHSCs to work in an Australian context.
“Yet this issue is not unique to Australia or insurmountable, especially when one considers the complexities of the US health care environment where AHSCs began,” Prof Fisk said.
“AHSCs are well established and beginning to have significant impact in other countries, including Canada, the UK and Holland.
The Deans of Medicine and Health Sciences at Australia’s leading Group of eight Universities, said that the advent, in mid 2011, of Local Hospital Networks, a central plank of the COAG National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement, offers a pivotal opportunity to introduce AHSCs.
Prof Fisk said that indeed, the simultaneous introduction of Medicare Locals, organisations intended to integrate and coordinate primary care services, provides a serendipitous platform to extend AHSCs into primary care.
“The real challenge will be winning the hearts and minds of Federal and State politicians,” Prof Fisk said.
“The time is ripe for Australia’s health system to grasp this opportunity to move from good to great and establish world-class AHSCs in an Australian context.”
The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.
The statements or opinions that are expressed in the MJA reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA unless that is so stated.
CONTACT: Prof Nicholas Fisk 07 3346 5300 / 0411 201 399
Marlene McKendry 07 3346 4713 / 0401 996 847
(Communications Manager, Health Sciences, The University of Queensland)
