MEDIA RELEASE
11/11/16
Australian healthcare entered a new era this week with release of the Government’s five-year strategy for the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) as well as a list of key priorities for investment in the next two years.
Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) Chair, Professor John Zalcberg said “This is a watershed moment for healthcare in Australia and we congratulate Minister Ley and the Federal Government, the members of the Medical Research Advisory Board (MRAB) and the Department of Health on bringing such a visionary plan together.”
The need to embed research as a core component of the health system is clearly a key understanding behind the Government’s plan to strategically invest in nationally coordinated clinical and health services research via the MRFF with patients and consumers the focal point.
“For the first time, we have a national investment strategy focused on building our capacity to undertake high impact research to determine which treatments deliver the best outcomes for patients and which represent the best value for the health system.
We are tremendously pleased to see investments flagged for a number of critical areas including clinical trials networks and registry infrastructure, public good trials and comparative effectiveness studies, clinical research fellowships, optimising health data linkage and improving the translation of research into practice and policy.” Professor Zalcberg said.
Professor Zalcberg also emphasized that a key component of the announcement is the commitment to measuring and reporting the economic returns from MRFF investments.
“The MRFF, once fully capitalised, will distribute $1billion of public funds each year. It will be beholden on those accessing these funds to conduct research to be able to demonstrate that the research advances healthcare and represents a good use of public dollars – either through more effective treatments or more cost-effective care.”
The ACTA Summit 2016 to be held in Melbourne later this month will address this very issue as top minds across the country come together to discuss ways to measure and maximise the direct health and economic returns of public investment in clinical trials and clinical quality registries.
“We look forward to working with the MRAB and the Government to support the development of metrics that will ensure that we are able to demonstrate the impact of the MRFF in a way that is meaningful to the Australian public.”