Janet Anderson,
Department of Health, NSW

Dr. Diana O’Halloran,
NSW General Practice Council
A general practitioner involved in health system change for more than a decade, Di is the Chair of the NSW General Practice Advisory Council, a member of the NSW Health Care Advisory Council and Co-Chair of the Primary and Community Health Advisory Committee.
Di also chairs WentWest: a large regional general practice training provider and one of only two such organisations to also manage divisional services. She has just stepped down after eight years as an RACGP Board member and Chair of the college’s NSW & ACT Faculty, and currently chairs the college’s National Presidential Task Force on Health System Reform.
Through NSW Health, Di is very involved in, and committed to, the evolution of HealthOne NSW, and sees this as a key strategy in building local partnerships between general practitioners, community health, other local services and the communities they serve. The development of a HealthOne community hub model in Mt Druitt is becoming a wonderful example of how such partnerships can form an effective local support platform for significantly disadvantaged patients, families and their carers while making health professionals’ lives more satisfying.

Professor C.W. Brook,
Department of Human Services, Victoria
Chris is the Executive Director, Rural & Regional Health & Aged Care Services for the Victorian Department of Human Services. This role carries operational responsibility for all rural and regional health and aged care services, and statewide program responsibility for Aged Care, Public Health, Primary and Community Health, Dental Health, Quality and Safety and Blood and Blood Products.  
Chris’ original postgraduate training was as a specialist physician but he has subsequently gained specialist qualifications in public health medicine, and in medical administration.   
Chris is deputy chair of the Jurisdictional Blood Committee; a member of the National Health Development Principal Committee; and co-chairs the Population Health Information Development Committee.  He is former president and an honorary life member of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua), and a Fellow of the Victorian Division of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia (IPAA).

Rod Wilson,
Inner East Community Health Service,
Victoria
Rod is the CEO of the Inner East Community Health Service a position he has held for the last 12 years.  He has been the CEO of 2 other Victorian community health services prior to this. 
He is Convenor of the Victorian Medicare Action Group a network of 150 organisations including health care providers, churches, unions, consumer groups and local councils throughout Victoria.  The VMAG has been representing the interests of consumers and primary health care providers in the current debate about the future of Medicare and the impact of proposed changes on consumers.
He has an academic background in Education, Research and Policy.

Dr Ross Nable,
Population Health & e-Health, GPV
Research scientist & manager for 20 years, mostly with CSIRO.  Moved to divisions of general practice 10 years ago.  Spent the first 9 years with North & West Queensland Primary Health Care, as Deputy CEO.  Responsible for quality, evaluation, & information management.  With General Practice Victoria for past year or so – Manager, Population Health & eHealth.

Sean Lowry,
Connecting Healthcare in Communities
(CHIC), Queensland Health
Sean has over 15 years experience in the public and private health sectors throughout Queensland. Originally from a cardiac and musculoskeletal rehabilitation background, he has worked extensively in the corporate sector in health promotion and more recently has been involved in implementing State and Commonwealth programs including the Sharing Health Care Initiative and the Queensland Strategy for Chronic Disease.
Prior to holding his current position as Statewide Coordinator of the Connecting Healthcare in Communities – CHIC Initiative, he worked as the Northern Area Chronic Disease Coordinator in Cairns and established the partnership based Healthier Great Green Way Initiative in Innisfail.
Sean has presented numerous papers at national and international symposiums and continues to provide strategic policy advice on state and nationwide advisory groups in primary health care. His is the current guest editor of the special partnership edition of the Australian Journal of Primary Health.
“Conferences such as these afford us the opportunity to establish the vital link between the myriad of policies, strategies and programs which have emerged in the chronic disease management space. Only through collaboration, integration and alignment of our ideas, resources and efforts can great efficiencies be realised for the benefit of all Australians.”

Dr Noel Hayman,
Inala Indigenous Health Service
Queensland
A/Professor Noel Hayman was one of the first two Indigenous medical students to graduate from the University of Queensland in 1990.
Noel’s current position is Clinical Director of the Inala Indigenous Health Service in Brisbane. Noel has been instrumental in demonstrating how mainstream primary health care services can be made appropriate to the needs of urban Aboriginal populations through the development of the Inala Indigenous Health Service.
Noel is on numerous National and State Committees including the current Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physician’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Expert Advisory Group.

Vicki Poxon,
Brisbane South Division of General
Practice
Vicki has been working with Divisions of general practice since 1999 from working at the Queensland State Based Organisation to being appointed as CEO of Brisbane South Division of General Practice in 2006.
It is in this capacity that Vicki introduced general practices to the potential and value of patient involvement. In 2006, 12 general practices commenced the patient experience journey with Associate Professor Michael Greco.
From the beginning the outcomes were amazing. CFEP’s practice questionnaire was used and practices worked as teams to understand and implement the results from the surveys. Some impacts from these initial workshops resulted in practices changing waiting room facilities, updating patients on the roles of the practice nurse or implementing chronic disease clinics. In 2008, the Division implemented the patient experience in all program areas.  
Vicki has worked in Western Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales and now Queensland. Vicki’s Division experience has mainly concentrated on the implementation of national and state roll out of chronic disease programs with a particular emphasis on change management and systems approaches that is required for successful uptake of any intervention into primary care.

Anne Matyear,
Australian Practice Nurse Association

Robert Wells,
Australian Primary Health Care Research
Institute
Robert is Director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at the Australian National University, Canberra. He works on a range of health policy and systems issues, including primary care, private health insurance, rural health and health workforce. Robert came to the ANU in 2004 from the Australian Department of Health and Ageing where he had many years experience as a senior administrator across many areas of health policy and program management. He was involved in the establishment and subsequent operations of the Australian Council on Safety and Quality in Health Care and the National Institute of Clinical Studies. He was formerly the secretary to the National Health and Medical Research Council. He serves on a number of boards and has a BA degree from the University of New England

Dr Tim Woodruff,
Doctors Reform Society
President of the Doctors Reform Society since 2001. The society is an organisation of doctors and medical students whose aim is to support health care reforms which 'ensure justice, equity and quality care for all regardless of social or economic status'. 
Dr Woodruff is a Tasmanian born and breed specialist physician working in private practice in the field of rheumatology in Melbourne. He is the father of two girls and husband of one.

Assoc. Professor Michael Greco,
Client-Focused Evaluations Program
(CFEP)
Michael Greco is Director of Client-Focused Evaluations Program (CFEP) which has offices in Australia and the UK, and is involved primarily in the provision of patient and colleague feedback to clinicians and healthcare organisations with the aim of enhancing quality and professional development.  He shares his commitments between both countries spending seven years in the UK as the Director of Patient Experience for the NHS National Primary Care Team.  
In Australia, CFEP works closely with Regional Training Providers of GP Registrars, the RACGP and ACRRM Professional Development Programs, and the peak body in the accreditation of Australian general practices.  In the UK, CFEP is a lead provider of patient surveys for British general practice, and is working closely with the UK’s General Medical Council on its revalidation instruments and the Health Foundation in the training of clinicians in patient self-care skills. 
He is a Director on both a GP Division and Regional Training Program Board, and holds honorary professor and senior research fellow posts at the School of Medicine, Griffith University and the Peninsula Medical School, UK. 

Dr Nathan Pinskier ,
The National E-Health Transition Authority
(NEHTA)
Dr Nathan Pinskier is a Melbourne GP with an extensive involvement in primary health care. He specialises in practice management systems, information technology, change management and general practice accreditation. Nathan holds a diploma in Practice Management from the University of New England Partnerships and holds fellowships with the Australian Association of Practice Managers (FAAPM) and the Australian Association for Quality in Healthcare (FAAQHC). Nathan was involved in the development and implementation of the information security standards for the general practice sector. He has a special interest in developing business applications that leverage the capacity of the Internet.

Dr Rod Pearce,
AMA Federal Councillor, & Chairman
of AMA Council of General Practice
(AMACGP)

Abbe Anderson
CEO,
GP Partners
Abbe Anderson is the CEO of GPpartners Ltd, Australia's largest Division of General Practice serving a population of over 600,000 people and 800 GPs in north Brisbane.  Abbe has worked with GPpartners since 2002.  Abbe has an MBA from Otago University in New Zealand and is currently enrolled in PhD studies through the University of New South Wales.  Abbe has been with GPpartners throughout the Team Care 2 Coordinated Care Trial and subsequent service coordination work funded by DVA, Medibank Private and Queensland Health.  The Team Care 2 trial proved GP-led service coordination can reduce unnecessary hospital admissions by an average of 25% for patients with chronic and complex care needs (intervention versus control patients in randomised control trial).  GPpartners is now assisting in the design of a model to see this program offered on a national scale.

Mick Adams,
National Aboriginal Community Controlled
Health Organisation (NACCHO)

Mark Harris
Mark Harris is Foundation Professor of General Practice and Director of the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at UNSW.  He has been awarded a Senior Professorial Research Fellowship by the Department of Health and Ageing. He has substantial research experience in the areas of health systems research on chronic illness management and prevention.  This includes projects on structured care for Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease and collation of data from division registers, evaluation of health assessments in the elderly and care planning especially in patients with chronic illness. He recently completed a study of the role of practice nurses and administrative staff in the management of patients with chronic illness in general practices.
Currently he is working on a trial of multidisciplinary teamwork for better chronic disease care for patients in general Practice.  He has completed an implementation trial of structured behavioural risk factor interventions in two divisions of General Practice (SNAP) and a before after trial of behavioural risk factor management in the 45 year old health check.  He is currently conducting randomised controlled trials of cardiovascular absolute risk assessment and vascular disease prevention in general practice.   He has also conducted research on health status and interventions with Indigenous people, refugees and unemployed people in primary health care over the last 25 years.   He has provided policy advice to Australian and NSW governments through his involvement in peak committees on diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and primary health care integration and on several NHMRC guideline groups.  This has contributed to policy in a number of areas including the Divisions and National Integrated Diabetes Program.
He is currently a member of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing Expert Reference Group on the Primary Health Care Strategy and has be commissioned to write papers for the National Preventative Task Force and the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission.

Russell McGowan
Russell McGowan is a bone marrow transplant survivor active in the healthcare consumer movement since the early 1990s and now retired from the workforce on invalidity grounds.  His working life had included teaching, field work, program management and policy development, mainly in connection with employment, education and training programs for and with indigenous people.  Russell participates in numerous community and consumer healthcare organisations, and is a member of the ACT Health Council and the Health Care Consumers’ Association of the ACT.  At the national level, he sits on the Medicare Services Advisory Committee and is Consumer Commissioner on the Australian Commission for Safety and Quality in Healthcare. He also sits on the Boards of the Consumers’ Health Forum of Australia, the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards and the Australian General Practice Network.  He has previously been a member of the Boards of the Cancer Council of Australia and the National Blood Authority.