About Us

As the last few years have shown, we live in highly dynamic times. Now more than ever, our choices must be informed by science.

Barwon Health is delighted to launch our 10-year Research Strategic Plan. We have defined a series of investments required to create a world-class research ecosystem. Within this ecosystem we will deliver a cohesive and coordinated suite of research programs. Our twelve vanguard Research Programs are:

• Enhance synergy between research, safety and quality to drive continuous improvements in care.
• Improve health outcomes for our most disadvantaged populations through public health research and translation.
• Develop allied health research capacity to drive innovation in digital health.
• Build the capacity and capability of cancer services research to drive improvements in person centred outcomes.
• Build the exemplar listening and learning mental healthcare system.
• Improve person centred care for people with Motor Neurone Disease.
• Improve the outcomes for people with infectious diseases.
• Prevent childhood allergic disease and asthma.
• Improve shared decision making and goal concordant care.
• Improve outcomes for people who require surgery.
• Improve the physical and mental health of the frail and ageing.
• Improve outcomes for people with musculoskeletal disease or injury.

Barwon Health, in partnership with Deakin University, is home one of the most renowned mental health research programs in the world (IMPACT). Over the coming decade, the Change to Improve Mental Health (CHIME) initiative will integrate research and clinical services to drive a continuous cycle of improvements in person-centred care.

Provision of cradle to grave care to a large and engaged community has enabled us to establish some of the most important cohort studies in the world. Projects such as the Barwon Infant Study (BIS) and the Geelong Osteoporosis Study (GOS) combine ‘people power’ with cutting-edge laboratory science to identify new targets for prevention and treatment of childhood allergic diseases through to frailty among the aging.

Similarly, our infectious diseases program leverages our setting to address population health responses to challenges including Mycobacterium Ulcerans, Hepatitis C, and SARSCov-2, as well as in-hospital conditions such as Staphylococcus infections. An exciting development in this space is the establishment of the Centre for Innovation in Infectious Diseases and Immunology Research (CIIDIR).

Barwon Health’s established clinical trials groups drive a culture of enquiry and evidence-based care. The generous support of the Costa family has enabled establishment of the Adrian Costa Clinical Trials Centre that will expand and diversify access to cutting edge treatments.

Partnership with our community is crucial. Barwon Health will invest in systems that enable consumer input across the research journey. Our research goes beyond scientific insights, to inform how we partner with people to improve their health and wellbeing – a philosophy embodied by our iValidate program which drives innovations and excellence in person-centred end-of-life care.

Barwon Health's vision for research is about being sufficiently ambitious and deliberate to ensure our efforts are both locally relevant and internationally important. We will be measured not only by the evidence we produce, but the impact we have on people’s lives.

Read the 2022 - 2032 Barwon Health Research Strategic Plan here.

This article also appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, 28 December 2023.