Monash Memo - articles - 31 October 2001

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New centre to build link between faculties

Monash's newly launched Centre for Health Services Operations Management will bring about an innovative pooling of resources between the Faculty of Information Technology and the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.

The centre's research and training activities will be directed towards day-to-day hospital management and decision support with the aim of enhancing the clinical research, teaching and training of health professionals.

Acting as a valuable resource for health professionals through teaching, training and consultancy, activities will be directed to improve quality of services and ensure more efficient use of health care resources.

Speaking at the launch on 12 September, deputy vice-chancellor (research and development) Professor Peter Darvall congratulated the centre on linking an interdisciplinary team of health service operational managers and the expertise of two faculties.

Senior lecturer in the School of Network Computing and research fellow at the centre Dr Lee Seldon said at the launch that constant medical change had made the centre a necessity.

"Every day we read in the press about the excellence of medical care in Australia, but at the same time we are reading about the severe deficiencies in bringing this care to the people who need it," he said.

"It is time to take a hard look at how medical care gets to the people and to really fix the problems."

Acting chief executive officer of Peninsula Health Dr Peter Bradford welcomed the establishment of the centre and praised the benefits that it could bring to Peninsula Health and the health industry in general.

The model for the centre has been designed to emulate current directions in health service operations management. The manager of Information and Performance Evaluation, Acute Health Division, Department of Human Services, Dr Ric Marshall, extended support on behalf of the department.

He noted that nurses comprise 70 per cent of operational managers at hospitals and, along with other operational managers, can spend up to a quarter of their time managing information.

Professor Peter Darvall, (second from right) and guests at the launch of the new Centre for Health Services Operations Management.