Dean's Impact Panel: Reforming healthcare through collaborative practice

On Tuesday 9 May, Professor Jane Gunn, the Dean for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences University of Melbourne hosted an Impact Panel Discussion on "Reforming healthcare through collaborative practice". On the panel was Professor Stephen Duckett, AM, Honorary Enterprise Professor, Professor Christine Kilpatrick AO, Chief Executive, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Sian Slade, PhD candidate University of Melborne and our own Joanne Bolton, Acting Director, Collaborative Practice Centre.

Left to right: Sian Slade, Professor Jane Gunn, Joanne Bolton, Professor Stephen Duckett, Professor Christine Kilpatrick.

The Faculty's Advancing Health 2030 aims to grow our precincts as world-renowned centres of best practice and impact. The four panel speakers explored the role the faculty will play in achieving this, with a focus on health system reform, workforce sustainability and collaborative practice. Jo shared a vision for a "collaborative practice ready" health workforce, and all speakers proposed and discussed a range of opportunities for strengthening our health system.  This included ways that we can focus on removing fragmentation between primary and tertiary care for patients, and how the faculty might contribute to health system reform.