Simpson Centre For Health Services Research
The Simpson Centre For Health Services Research was established and funded in 1994 by the New South Wales Health Department to promote research into Health Systems.
The Centre’s fundamental goal is to innovate, develop, implement and evaluate health care systems. In addition, we conduct research to generate new knowledge about existing services and to influence policy and practice.
The Centre consists of researchers and clinicians committed to improving the health and safety of patients. Close co-operation with health care deliverers is a fundamental part of the multi-disciplinary research team. The research is to inform managers and policy makers about more efficient and better ways of conducting business and to enhance health care practices.
Our focus is on programmes and projects that aim to facilitate change and innovation in order to improve health service delivery and patient and staff satisfaction.
We are committed to achieving world class, clinically driven research.
The Centre is affiliated with the Faculty Of Medicine within the University of New South Wales, (Australia) and South West Sydney Local Health District.
Please click here to watch Professor Ken Hillman discuss the research of the Centre.
History
The Centre was established by a special grant from NSW Health in 1994 and was opened by the Hon. Andrew Refshauge, the Minister of Health in the same year.
The Centre was named after
John Simpson Kirkpatrick who served in the Australian army in the first world war and was amongst the first to land on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey, in the early hours of the 25th April 1915 and who was probably better known as “the man with the donkey”. Simpson threw away the health care manual which was totally inappropriate for the conditions at Gallipoli and simply got on with the job, devising new ways of caring for the wounded, including using a donkey named Murphy. His innovations inspired his comrades and created a legend. The Centre is named after Simpson as he was a front line health care worker who challenged the existing ways of treating the ill and injured.
The Foundation and current Director, Professor Ken Hillman, together with other clinicians saw a critical need for research to be undertaken to deliver better and safer patient care. In parallel to developing new systems would be research to evaluate these systems.
The Centre was established within the Liverpool Hospital Campus and is affiliated with the
University of New South Wales, Faculty of Medicine and is part of the
South Western Sydney Clinical School, located at Liverpool Hospital. The Simpson Centre is one of four Centres who now form the
Australian Institute of Health Information (AIHI). The other three Centres are
the Centre for Clinical Governance Research in Health,
the Centre for Health Informatics and the
Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research.
Projects undertaken by the Centre include:
- The Perioperative System – introduced to improve the procedures for managing elective surgery and succeeded in providing enhanced patient care at a reduced cost.
- Emergency Medicine Research – looking at new models of care to provide a better quality of care and greater safety for patients presenting to the Emergency Department.
- Discharge Programmes – evaluating systems to improve the patient’s hospital journey and discharge process.
- Early Intervention for at-risk Hospitalised Patients - the concept of the Medical Emergency Team (MET) was first established in 1989 at Liverpool Hospital. It replaced the cardiac arrest team and has been shown to reduce mortality, cardiac arrests and other serious adverse patient events. The system has now been introduced in many countries around the world. The Simpson Centre has led much of the ground-breaking research conducted around this concept.
Future Directions
The Centre will continue to have an increasing role in areas of health services research including:
- Increased national and international reputation in the area of research around patient safety.
- Increase in multicentre research.
- Increased engagement of health services research and government policy.
- Increase in collaborative research programmes.