South Australia could learn a lot from advanced healthcare modelling pioneered by Brunel ‘s Professor Terry Young, according to the region’s Health Minister Jack Snelling MP.
Mr Snelling (pictured, right) visited Brunel to find out more about the Cumberland Initiative, a project aimed at developing simulations of healthcare processes and systems to improve efficiency.
Hearing about the initiative through academics at the University of Adelaide, who have collaborated with researchers in the UK, Mr Snelling said: “There are great opportunities for South Australia to learn and benefit from what is already happening in other parts of the world and there is much to be learnt as to how mathematical modelling can provide strategic insights into the impacts of proposed health reforms and in many ways help drive health reform itself.”
He added that he was keen to embed academic modellers in the care system across Adelaide and South Australia. Later in the year Professor Young (pictured, centre) is scheduled to visit Adelaide and Melbourne to develop further collaboration between the regions.
The Brunel-led project opened a ‘living lab’ for clinicians and health managers to test efficiency in the NHS using large scale computer gaming and other modelling techniques. The lab includes a mocked up A&E where clinicians and managers can try out different scenarios for making emergency departments more effective - without practising new ideas on sick patients in a busy hospital.
Vice-Chancellor and President of Brunel University London, Professor Julia Buckingham (pictured) said of the visit: “It is wonderful that news of Professor Young’s unique and vital work has spread across the world. We all know that running a health care service is a hugely complex task, wherever you are in the world, and the lessons being learnt by those involved in the Cumberland Initiative couldn’t be more important.”