Head Office
Director
MBBS Monash, FRACP, FAFRM, FAFPHM, FRCP(Edin),
MD Hon.Causa (Lund)
Professor Brooks graduated from Monash University in 1967, returned to Tasmania for post-medical training then went to Scotland in 1972 as a researcher at the University of Glasgow.
He returned to Hobart in 1976 to lecture in medicine before moving to Flinders University in 1978 as senior lecturer in medicine. In 1982 he became Foundation Professor of Rheumatology, Sydney University, based at Royal North Shore Hospital. In 1991 he moved to St Vincent's Hospital as Professor of Medicine and Head of the Medical Professorial Unit, a post he held until he joined the University of Queensland in 1998. He is currently Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland.
Professor Brooks has a long-standing interest in the future health workforce and while at the University of Queensland has overseen the development of interprofessional learning as a faculty-wide initiative, a new School of Nursing with nurse practitioner and midwifery streams and the development of physician assistant programs.
Professor Brooks has been a strong advocate for exploring in an evidence-based fashion new models of health care and developing an approach to health care funding which provides better incentives for health promotion and disease prevention and an emphasis upon reducing long-term 'load' on the acute health system.
Recent publications on health workforce issues include:
- 'Health Workforce Innovation Conference Report' (with N. Ellis) in The Medical Journal of Australia, 2005; 184:3, 105-106.
- 'The health workforce of the future - partnerships in health care' in The Australian Health Consumer 2, 2005-2006.
- 'Health workforce reform - can we achieve it?' in New Matilda e-publications, 14 December 2005.
- 'More bang for each health care buck' in New Matilda e-publications, 8 February 2006.
Deputy Director (University of Queensland Node)
Prof. Helen Chenery is deputy director of AHWI and head of the UQ node.
Professor Helen Chenery is Director of Studies in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Executive Director of the Centre for Research in Language Processing and Linguistics. Her research interests focus on psycholinguistic studies of language processing in healthy individuals and people who have sustained neurological damage and language neuroscience.
Her major areas of research examine the nature of language processing in both healthy and neurologically-involved populations based on the integration of detailed models of language processing within a neurobiological framework.
Prof. Chenery has contributed to the development of health workforce in Australia through her leadership and key note addresses at several Australian health workforce workshops. She recently represented the Unviersity of Queensland at the 2nd Australian Health Workshop on Building a Sustainable Heatlh Workforce in Australia at St. Lucia, Brisbane.
Senior Project Manager
BA (Hons), M.Ed, PhD, PDM (in progress)
Brendan is senior project manager/Institute manager. He oversees the day to day operations of the Institute including finance and legals, organises AHWI's national conferences and workshops, and contributes to academic research on health workforce. He is a historian by training, and has recently submitted (successfully) a PhD on quantitative analysis of social attitudes to Australians in Japanese higher education. He has contributed to several AHWI reports, including those on Health Career Pathways and the Nursing Workforce and prepared AHWI's application for the National Health Workforce Taskforce (NHWT) with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). He is currently working with the Insitute on a CRC bid for 2010 on Building a Sustainable Health Workforce in Australia.
Senior Research Fellow
BSc (Hons), GradDipMHS, PhD
Dr Naccarella is a Senior Research Fellow and a leading primary health care services researcher and evaluator. His experience includes providing national leadership and input at policy level; reviewing evidence of the role of general practice in population health and primary health care integration initiatives for the Commonwealth General Practice Branch; evaluating initiatives aimed at improving working relationships, such as the Enhanced Primary Care support; and topic specific interventions, including: the Active Script Program; and the Better Outcomes in Mental Health Program; and conducting systematic literature reviews on models for comprehensive primary health care delivery, and the place of generalism in the 2020 primary care team. In 2007 he was guest editor for the Australian Journal of Primary Health on a special issue on Comparative Approaches to Primary Health Care: Key lessons for Australia’s primary health care policy-making. Dr Naccarella is currently the Inaugural Research Fellow at AHWI at a 0.5 EFT fraction and the Policy Analyst for General Practice Victoria at a 0.5 EFT fraction.
Research interests include:
- Strengthening a generalist primary care workforce
- System change within the general practice setting,
- Optimising models of multidisciplinary primary care delivery
- Facilitating evidence-based primary care policy and practice change
Research Fellow 
BSc (Hons), PGCert, PhD
Louise's multi-disciplinary background has developed from her studies in Psychology, Education and Allied Health Sciences. After completing a degree in Psychology and Post Graduate Certificate in Social Science, she went on to conduct her PhD research exploring inter-professional working among practitioners from Health and Education services working together in school settings in the
Research Assistants
BA, BPPM (Hons), MPH (in progress)
Georgia has recently completed a Bachelor of Arts/ Bachelor of Public Policy and Management (Honours) and is commencing a Masters of Public Health at Monash University in 2009. Her thesis focussed on the General Practice setting and the interprofessional relationships that exist within it. Georgia has previously worked with the Australian Practice Nurses Association, assisting with policy development.
BA Hons (Anthropology), Master of Social Policy (in progress)
Fleur worked for two years as a tutor and research assistant in Anthropology and Development Studies at The University of Melbourne before moving to General Practice Victoria, where she works as a research assistant to the CEO. Fleur’s areas of interest centre around the role of general practice in the Australian primary health care system, and include workforce reform, the positioning of primary health care within
B.Soc.Sci, BTh, MPH (in progress)
Roz is working on her research project for the Masters of Public Health at the University of Melbourne. Her thesis is looking at a needs evaluation for Eating Disorders Victoria. She is interested in research and evaluation of that relates to chronic and complex poorly understood illnesses particularly those with a chronic pain syndrome and eating disorders. She has a history of clinical practice in counselling and youth work in a variety of community health services. Roz is currently working under the direction of Senior Research Fellow, Dr Lucio Naccarella, investigating the impacts of incentives in primary healthcare teams.
B.Sc(Genetics & Biochemistry), M. Gen.Couns. (in progress)
Amanda is a research assistant working on the role of generalists in multidisciplinary team care under the direction of Dr. Lucio Naccarella . She is also completing coursework and a research project for her degree - Masters of Genetic Counselling, the University of Melbourne. Her thesis is looking at long-term needs of cancer predisposition gene carriers from regional Victoria. She has previously worked with the Centre for Rheumatic Diseases, The University of Melbourne, on a number of projects related to the self-management of chronic diseases, as a tutor for the University Breadth Subject (UBS) 'Genetics, Health and Society'.
PGrad Dip (Occupational Therapy), Masters of Public Health
Monica is a research assistant who has recently joined the AHWI team and will be working on various projects throughout 2010. Prior to this appointment, she also worked at Monash University and completed a literature review which looked at Interprofessional Education. Earlier in 2009 she was Project Manager for the Moonee Valley Melbourne PCP, and completed a project that focused on Improving awareness and Access to Type Two Diabetes Services within the region. In addition, she has vast clinical experience in Occupational Therapy, and as part of her work in community health, ran a successful falls prevention program.
Amie Bingham
PhD Students
Erica's PhD research will focus on the integration of International Medical Graduates into the Australian health workforce. Erica is supervised by AHWI Professioral Fellow, Prof. Lesleyanne Hawthorne, The Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.
Master of Population Studies (ANU), Graduate Certificate Human Resource Management (Griffith), PhD (in progress)
Erika has over 18 years experience in consultancy, key strategy and planning roles in the public and private sector. She has been engaged by large government departments and utilities to design temporal decision support systems, provide complex statistical analysis and forecasting of workforce systems, undertake demographic profiling and advise on the implementation and management of organisational management systems. During her time in the Royal Australian Air Force Erika worked primarily in the planning and analysis of the workforce aspects of capability.Erika’s PhD examines the return on investment of strategies to reduce the demand for future health workforce.
Erika is supervised by Dr Lennert Veerman and Professor Peter Brooks.