Australasian Long-Term Conditions 2014

Introduction & context

There is growing interest and sense of urgency in the area of long‐term conditions – the contribution to acute hospital demand, escalating costs and overloaded hospitals, yet there are few opportunities for primary, secondary and tertiary care clinicians, funders, programme managers, service providers, community organisations, researchers and policy analysts to meet, share ideas, knowledge and learnings. There are also few opportunities to look at the wide range of technology enablers, the positive elements of healthy aging and strategies for living well with long-term conditions.

Themes

The themes of the Conference therefore looked to address some of these issues and included:

• People, health and technology
• Integrating policies and systems for health and whānau ora
• Changing paradigms – healthcare – consumers - communities -– partneringhealth providers and consumers as partners
• Bridging science, technology, design and services
• Preventing ill health and disability – healthy beginnings and life-long health
• Gathering the evidence, communicating risk and sharing and decisions support
• Workforce – out of the swamps and silos

Speakers

Keynote & invited speakers included: 

• Dr Chad Boult, MD, MPH, MBA, healthcare consultant, a teacher, author, researcher and a physician board-certified in Family Medicine and Geriatrics. Dr Boult has extensive experience in developing, testing, evaluating, and diffusing new models of comprehensive health care for persons with chronic conditions. 
• Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, speaker and author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies, including the leading future research and strategy firm Future Exploration Network. He contributes to events around the world. He is a best-selling author of books including the prescient Living Networks, which foresaw the social networking revolution, as well as Trends in the Living Networks, ranked as one of the top business blogs in the world. Read more on his website. 
• Dr Nick Goodwin is a social scientist, academic and policy analyst and co-founder/CEO of the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), a not-for-profit membership-based foundation dedicated to improving the science, knowledge and application of integrated health care across the world. Nick also works as a Senior Associate at The King’s Fund, London... Read more on his website.
• Professor Malcolm Battersby - Researcher, and Director, Flinders Human Behaviour & Health Research Unit, Flinders University. 
• Professor Martin Connolly - Freemasons’ Professor of Geriatric Medicine at The University of Auckland and Geriatrician at Waitematā District Health Board and Clinical School Head for the University of Auckland at Waitematā DHB. 
  of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Geriatric Medicine.
• Dr Sue Crengle is from Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe and Kāi Tahu tribes. She obtained her medical, MPH, and PhD degrees from the University of Auckland. She holds specialty qualifications in general practice and public health medicine. 
• Wendy Horne is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences at Unitec Institute of Technology. She is a member of the Health Workforce New Zealand working group tasked with implementing an education framework across NZ for the health science and technology workforce. More - Unitec website  
• Dr Sharon L Kletchko is a registered specialist in Internal Medicine who has been working within the Planning and Funding function in DHBs for the past 13 years. Sharon has lead transformational change in many services and is regarded as a strategic thinker and demonstrated prowess in systems design and redesign.
• Marc Miller is General Manager, Utilisation and Integrated Care for Medibank, Australia’s largest private health insurer. He has more than 20 years’ experience in strategy and corporate development across the Asia Pacific region in healthcare and IT.
• Dr Sharad P Paul holds the positions of Senior Lecturer (hon) in Surgery (The University of Auckland) and Senior Lecturer in Skin Cancer (University of Queensland). He is well known for his innovative thinking and service delivery, particularly for skin lesions and skin cancer. Visit his website to read more.
• Susan Reid who has tribal affiliations to Te Rarawa, holds a senior management position at Workbase where she has worked for the past 23 years. She has well known as a health literacy expert and researcher. 
• Dr Susan Wells is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Population Health, The University of Auckland. She is a public health medicine specialist and researcher focusing on improving care for heart disease and diabetes via ehealth initiatives. 
• Dr Robyn Whittaker - public health specialist and researcher with particular interest in mobile health, texting and much more. 
  
  MASTER OF CEREMONIES
  Cameron Bennett was our very able MC for the conference. His background is as a journalist, writer and producer.
  
  CONSUMER COORDINATOR
  Gary Sutcliffe has 10 years’ experience in the mental health sector in a number of roles including consumer leadership, management, peer support and advocacy and as a programme facilitator. Gary has lived experience of mental illness and of recovery and has committed the latter years of his working life to supporting people on their journeys of recovery and facilitating wellness. 

Organising committee

A big thanks to the organising committee for their extraordinary effort organising the conference. 

• Mary-Anne Boyd, Convenor
• Janine Bycroft, Clinical Director, Health Navigator Charitable Trust, Co-convenor
• Kim Arcus, Manager Heart Healthcare, Heart Foundation
• Judy Eves, Sector Portfolio Manager, National Health IT Board
• Pat Flanagan, Long-Term Conditions Consultant
• Megan Grant, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Health
• Gayl Humphrey, Research Fellow, National Institute for Health Innovation, The University of Auckland
• Nick Polaschek, Senior Project Manager, Ministry of Health
• Anne-Marie Ruhe, Maori Health Gain, Auckland and Waitematā DHBs
• Karyn Sangster, Chief Nurse Advisor Primary and Integrated Care, Counties Manukau Health
• Nicolette Sheridan, Associate Professor; Associate Dean, Faculty of Medical andHealth Sciences, University of Auckland
• Gary Sutcliffe, The Peer Support Specialist, East Tamaki Healthcare
• Charmaine Vaughan, Marketing and Communications Advisor, Health Navigator