The trick is speaking a language that both Treasury and clinicians can understand.
“Pivotal” was the word of the day for the Research Australia Health Economics Symposium in Canberra today that saw health economists from across the nation clash heads on what the next steps were for the sector.
Establishing better funding systems was a common priority among speakers with Telstra Health managing director Elizabeth Koff especially highlighting where discussion of health economics needed to meet with clinicians.
Ms Koff said health economists should be collaborating with clinicians about how metrics for work efficiency needed to be communicated with empathy for clinician workloads.
“We’re the owners of the data and the custodians. So how we shift that dial?” she said.
“The language that Treasury wanted to speak to me is completely different to the language that I have to speak to the health system.
“We have to think how to shift the language to get clinicians on board, to actually [help them] realise the benefits of health services, research and health economics to the clinical care they deliver.”
This sentiment was also expressed by attendees who reiterated the need to address both the funding and workforce as parallel reforms.
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“It’s almost if they’re two different streams which need to be developed for the health economist,” said Professor Neil Merrett, co-chair of the NSW Health Surgical Care Governance Taskforce.
“We’ve got great innovation,” said UNSW’s Professor Raghu Lingam.
“The problem is that, as researchers, we’re talking about health economics like it’s out there somewhere.
“It needs to be integrated into everything that we do.”
Ms Koff also elaborated on feedback regarding fragmentation in the health workforce, with health economists falling victim to this separation.
Further digitisation of healthcare was proposed as a solution to this fragmentation, citing the last report by the Australian Productivity Commission that reported $5 billion worth of savings if digital health was adopted more consistently.
Discourse on funding took the mainstage for the majority of speakers, with presenters saying data delivered by health economists needed to be acted on and not just communicated.
This point was developed further with discussion around treating Australia’s healthcare sector more as an industry, given how much of the population was employed in the sector.
“Boosting productivity across the five pillars will require new policy insights and innovative performance, yet formulating and analysing policy is a complex task,” said Macquarie University’s Professor Henry Cutler.
“Policy failures stem from core design or implementation or both. Particularly in healthcare, strong ideology and militant lobby groups can derail governments intending to strengthen evidence-based policy.”
