Meet the Advisory Group

Professor Jennifer Tieman is a Matthew Flinders Fellow in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. As Director and Research Lead for two national palliative care resources, CareSearch and PalliAGED she is responsible for ensuring palliative care evidence is available for health professionals, aged care workers and people and families affected by the need for palliative care. The CareSearch project team undertakes research on knowledge retrieval and knowledge dissemination and investigates approaches that encourage the use of evidence in health, particularly in palliative care and end of life care. Jennifer is part of the consortium team delivering the ELDAC project. She is also research lead of a specialist research team, Flinders Filters, which is building the evidence around bibliometric retrieval and use.

Associate Professor Joel Rhee is an Academic general practitioner with special interest in end-of-life care and advance care planning. Joel is the Head of Discipline of General Practice at UNSW. His PhD examined the role of advance care planning in the Australian primary care context, and his subsequent research has focused on both primary palliative care and advance care planning. Joel works clinically as a GP at the HammondCare Centre for Positive Ageing and Care. He contributes to the Advance Project by leading the stakeholder engagement with general practice organisations and assisting with the development of educational materials for GPs and registrars.

Professor Halcomb is the inaugural Professor of Primary Health Care Nursing at the University of Wollongong. Professor Halcomb has a sustained nationally and internationally recognised track record of integrated scholarship. She leads a strong research program in primary care nursing, with particular emphasis on nursing in general practice, chronic disease and nursing workforce issues. She has had over 200 peer reviewed papers (h-index 28) published since 2001. Additionally, she has led the writing of two national professional practice standards for primary care nurses. Since 2004 Professor Halcomb has been an Investigator on grants totalling over $6.16 million. Throughout all of this work Professor Halcomb has focussed on ensuring that the knowledge generated has been built on the synthesis of existing knowledge and that key findings and implications have been translated back into practice and policy.

Deborah is Professor of Nursing Aged Care (Dementia) at the University of Technology Sydney. Deborah’s research seeks to improve the quality of life and care for senior Australians. This includes programs of research in palliative care, digital technology and sustainable business models. She is co-lead for End of Life Directions in Aged Care (ELDAC).

Sue is a geriatrician practising at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital in northern Sydney and at Batemans Bay Hospital in southern NSW. She holds the Curran Chair in Health Care of Older People in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. Her research and practice interests centre on dementia, frailty, elder abuse, and intergenerational programs. Her recent extracurricular work has included involvement with the International Emmy award winning ABC series ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’. She is a member of the Advisory Council to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and chairs the Cognitive Impairment Advisory Group for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

Professor Geoff Mitchell is Emeritus Professor in the General Practice Clinical Unit at The University of Queensland. He is a practicing GP whose main academic interests are in palliative care research, and the general practice care of chronic and complex medical problems in primary care. He has published widely and is Chief Investigator on several grants around palliative care and chronic disease management in primary care, and the conduct of community based clinical trials.

Professor Virginia Lewis is a health services researcher and evaluator with more than 30 years of experience. She has a special interest in evaluation of policies and programs implemented within complex systems. She has designed and led many large-scale evaluations with a focus on system integration to improve access to healthcare in areas including primary healthcare, mental health care and palliative care. Virginia holds a Research Chair in Community Health, a position co-funded by La Trobe University and cohealth, a large community health centre operating in 11 local government areas in Melbourne. She leads a small evaluation-focused research centre within the Australian Institute for Primary Care & Ageing at La Trobe University. Virginia is Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Primary Health.

Professor Jane Phillips is Head of School of Nursing, Queensland University of Technology and Emerita Professor at IMPACCT – Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through clinical research and Translation, the interdisciplinary research Centre she established in 2017 at the University of Technology Sydney. She has an in-depth understanding of palliative care and experience in delivering the best evidence-based palliative care across diverse settings, including rural and regional Australia, and considerable expertise in leading and evaluating complex health service reforms. Jane has led several significant cancer and palliative care reform initiatives at local and national levels and published her work extensively. She can navigate the complex interplay between the clinical, research, policy and professional environments.

Associate Professor Karen Detering is a respiratory physician and clinical ethicist with many years experience in the area of advance care planning. She has contributed to policy, education and research in advance care planning nationally and internationally, and published widely in this field. She is a Medical Officer at the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, an Honorary Associate Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, and was Medical Director of Advance Care Planning Australia between 2016-2020.

Rachael Morton is Professor and Director of health economics and health technology assessment at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. She specialises in trial-based and modelled economic evaluation, and elicitation of patient preferences using discrete choice experiments. Her research incorporates patient-centred and economic outcomes into clinical trials of diagnostic tests, new treatments and models of care to facilitate policy decision-making on the basis of cost-effectiveness.