Centre for Health Services Research

Queensland Digital Health Centre research

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QDHeC researchers and collaborators  are developing research to tackle the problems of:

  • The growing cost of healthcare: The World Economic Forum and OECD predict emerging economies will see a more than doubling of health spending over the next decade.
  • People: The approaching wave of retirement of healthcare professionals is occurring at the same times as demand for health services is rising.
  • Demand: Costly care needs are growing as populations continue to age and expand.

QDHeC research

We are working to solve these problems and tackle siloed information systems to create a learning health care system. We have attracted more than $46 million in research funding since the centre was established in late-2022, including:

  • $15million as part of UQ’s Health Research Accelerator (HERA) program. QDHeC is one of seven programs selected for support over seven years to address the most pressing health and medical challenges. Our collaborative approach is designed to find solutions that have a signifcant impact on human health and wellbeing.
  • $13.7million, made up of Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant and partner-funded contributions for the National Infrastructure for Federated Learning in Digital Health (NINA) project. Rather than attempting to merge different data sets to enable machine learning centrally, the project will bring machine learning to the data. NINA will prepare and harmonise the data to global standards which protect individual privacy and enable researchers to use machine learning to progress their research.
  • $3million MRFF grant for the Digital Infrastructure For improving First Nations Maternal and Child Health (DIFFERENCE) project . The DIFFERENCE project is a partnership between UQ, the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health, Mater Health, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, CSIRO, Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation and QUT. The project will help link disparate records across different heath care services with  to improve maternal and perinatal health outcomes for First Nations mothers and babies.
  • $2.9million MRFF grant for the National infrastructure for real-time clinical AI trials (NASCENT) project.
  • $3million MRFF grant and $2.4million in-kind partner contributions for the Life and Health after Childhood Cancer (LACE) project.