NEO Lecture Series: Adopting an explicit Research and Innovation Strategy to foster value in healthcare – Experience from NSW, Australia

On behalf of the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO)…

New South Wales, Australia is a leading healthcare system that has adopted an explicit goal to increase efficiency by shifting the focus from the volume of services delivered to the actual value created for patients. Under a 10-year Future Health framework, an explicit Research and Innovation Strategy has recently been adopted, positioning clinical improvement and transformation as a rigorous, stage-gated business pipeline—taking ideas from local pilots and scaling them into standard operating models across the entire state. By optimizing workforce use through standardized nurse-led emergency protocols, expanding virtual care through a Single Front Door initiative, and enforcing strict same-day surgery targets, progress has been made to reduce unnecessary hospital stays and low-value practices. Ultimately, this strategy aims to systematically reallocate funds from low-return areas and purposefully reinvest them into high-return clinical innovations that improve health outcomes and promote system sustainability.

This presentation will provide an overview of frameworks guiding the overarching approach and provide examples from New South Wales, Australia.

Light refreshments will be provided for those attending in-person (registration required).

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Jean-Frédéric Levesque is the Deputy Secretary, Clinical Innovation and Research at the New South Wales Ministry of Health and Chief Executive of the New South Wales Agency for Clinical Innovation. He is an Adjunct Professor at the International Centre for Futiure health Systems at the University of New South Wales. He has a Medical Degree, a Masters in Community Health and a Doctorate in Public Health from the Université de Montréal, Canada. Jean-Frédéric brings extensive senior leadership in healthcare systems analysis and improvement, combining experience in clinical practice in refugee health and tropical medicine, in clinical governance and in academic research. As part of his research portfolio, Jean-Frédéric has published more than 160 peer reviewed publications and his seminal research producing a conceptual framework on healthcare access and inequity has been cited more than 5,000 times. Originally from Canada, Jean-Frédéric has worked in diverse medical, research and public health roles in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and Australia.