Duncan Mortimer, left, and Stella Talic
The patient voice is front and centre of two Monash University health system projects that have secured almost $4 million in combined federal government funding.
Both highlight the need for consumer involvement in effective health technology assessments, which determine which health technologies can be sold in Australia. They aim to improve outcomes with innovations such as citizens' juries and cultural appropriateness.
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grants to Monash Business School and the Monash School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (SPHPM) are via the Preventative and Public Health Research Initiative 2025, Incorporating Patient Data in Health Technology Decision Making.
Monash's projects are led by Associate Professor Duncan Mortimer, from Monash Business School's Centre for Health Economics, and Dr Stella Talic, Head of the SPHPM PharmacoEpidemiology Research Group.
Associate Professor Mortimer, whose project received $1.947 million, heads the Patient-Centred Evaluation of medical devices (PACE) project. The five-year grant will enable improved consumer input "beyond tokenistic consultation."
"The PACE project proposes a transformative approach to health technology assessments by embedding consumer-informed methods and patient data into the evaluation of medical devices," he said. "PACE emphasises authentic consumer engagement throughout."
In collaboration with the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, PACE will design health technology assessment processes with patient and community representatives. Lived experience and early consumer involvement will be prioritised.
Among other things, the team will establish a dedicated consumer evidence base to quantify the impact of consumer input and assess the value of patient-reported outcome and experience measures.
"Innovative engagement strategies, including citizens' juries and living labs, will be used to co-design evaluation criteria and implementation strategies," Professor Mortimer said.
"It builds on existing research and addresses gaps in understanding how consumer input influences decision-making, particularly within the Medical Services Advisory Committee. Ultimately, PACE aims to create a more inclusive, evidence-based, and patient-centred HTA framework that enhances the relevance and impact of health policy decisions."
Dr Talic's project, known as CORE-PROM: Co-Designing patient reported Outcomes, Repository, and Evidence for PROM integration in health technology assessment, received $1.980 million .
It aims to improve the integration of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) into the Australian health technology assessment process. The four-year CORE-PROM project will focus on improving outcomes for older people experiencing diseases of ageing, people with rare or untreatable diseases/conditions and those in remote/rural communities
Dr Talic said while policy makers acknowledged the relevance of patient perspectives, there was no nationally endorsed framework to guide the selection, validation and application of patient reported outcomes in health technology assessment submissions.
She said her project would develop consumer-informed approaches to generate and/or incorporate consumer/patient data across the process. They would be patient-centred, culturally appropriate, open access, and contain high-quality data.
"The overarching aim is to establish a national, co-designed framework with supporting digital infrastructure for systematically integrating culturally-adapted patient reported outcomes across the health technology assessment lifecycle," Dr Talic said.
"This will be achieved through an open-access repository, integrations into existing platforms and rigorous evaluation of patient reported outcome measures to ensure more equitable, transparent, and patient-centred funding decisions."
PACE involves Monash University, the University of Technology Sydney Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, the University of Sydney Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data, and the Deakin University School of Nursing and Midwifery. It also partners with Consumers Health Forum of Australia, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group, Patients Australia, The Society for All Nuclear Medicine Professionals, the Lung Foundation Australia, and Rare Voices Australia. Other Monash University researchers include Associate Professor Jing Jing Li, Professor Paula Lorgelly, Kah Ling Sia, and Professor Anthony Harris, from the Centre for Health Economics.
CORE-PROM involves Monash University, the University of New South Wales School of Population Health, the University of Sydney's Sydney Pharmacy School and the University of South Australia's Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre. It also partners with MedAdvisor, South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network, Western Victoria Primary Health Network, Gippsland Primary Health Network, and Outcome Health. Other Monash University researchers include Associate Professor Rasa Ruseckaite from Clinical Registries in the SPHPM, Dr Lidia Engel from the SPHPM Health Economics Group and Dr Lachlan Dalli from the School of Clinical Sciences.
