Each year, more than $14 billion is spent by the federal government on the direct health costs of cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of death and disability in Australia.
A perspective in the Medical Journal of Australia discusses developing new models to harness Australia’s immense research resources to drive new strategies that can help patient and economic outcomes.
“Australia urgently needs a model that connects governments, health service providers and the research workforce to regularly update data on the burden of disease and essential clinical quality indicators,” the authors state.
“There is already a wealth of information available for clinical quality improvement, but these data are often fragmented, lack robust metadata and are unable to be accessed in a systematic and timely manner.”
The Cardiovascular Health Leadership Research Forum (CV HLRF) connects the health system with Australia’s researchers. It allows funders to invest in, and our health system to implement, prioritised research areas.
“Until now, there has been no mechanism that allows for a fully integrated national conversation on CVD [cardiovascular disease] and stroke between the health system, clinicians, researchers, industry partners, state and federal governments, and data and health economics experts.”
“It has the potential to accelerate implementation and drive new preventive and therapeutic strategies and foster a vibrant medical technology ecosystem, thereby, positively affecting patient and economic outcomes,” the authors said.
The CV HLRF was established in 2022 and was designed and is hosted by the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance (ACvA) — the nation’s peak body for CVD researchers.
“Key elements of the CV HLRF include:
- endorsement by National Health Chief Executive Forum as a valuable model for connecting health, clinical and research leaders to contemporary cardiovascular health data to identify evidence-based research and implementation priorities;
- commitment of health leaders from all Commonwealth, state and territory health jurisdictions to at least biannual forum meetings;
- collaborative approach to identifying research and implementation priorities that are deeply relevant to health system needs for CVD;
- connection to national cardiovascular research workforce through the ACvA for whole-of-pipeline solutions (eg, fundamental mechanisms, new diagnostic and therapeutic tools, bioengineering, clinical trials, and implementation and policy);
- building of partnerships with health services and industry and moving towards co-commissioned approaches to prioritised areas;
- commitment to evaluating the clinical and economic impact of interventions prospectively; and
- support for an evolving national data dashboard of standardised cardiovascular outcomes and clinical quality indicators to identify major gaps and inequities.”
Read the perspective published by the MJA here.
- Sally Block