News
CARNEGIE-WITS ALUMNI DIASPORA PROGRAMME
Professor Cyril Meyerowitz visited the Faculty from 9 – 13 November 2015 and was hosted by Dr Julitha Molepo in the School of Oral Health Sciences. He is the Director Emeritus of the Eastman Institute for Oral Health at Rochester University, New York. The Eastman Institute for Oral Health is one of six regional nodes the USA’s National Dental Practice-Based Research Network’s (NDPBR). In his Faculty lecture, on 11 November, Professor Meyerowitz presented on the NDPBR and on some of the studies he has undertaken thus far. Professor Meyerowitz clarified that whilst there is a high volume of research in the basic sciences, they are poor at producing interventions. NDPBR focuses on significant, day-to-day issues encountered by practices and practitioners with results that can be implemented. Professor Meyerowitz also gave insights into the administrative, regulatory and ethics processes.
On the 23 – 26 November 2015, Dr Neil Soderlund, senior adviser in the Sydney office of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and head of Healthcare Practice in Australia and New Zealand visited the Faculty. He was hosted by Professor Karen Hofman in the School of Public Health. Dr Soderlund is also a member of BCG's Global Value Based Healthcare leadership team. Dr Soderlund gave two Faculty lectures and met with reseachers in the faculty. He presented a Faculty lecture entitled “Measuring Health Outcomes” where he emphasised the role of the International Collaboration for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) in standardising sets of outcomes. ICHOM develops surveys that introduce a minimum data set required which can be further developed by doctors. These standard sets have been adopted by numerous healthcare institutions internationally and have been useful in enabling practitioners and patients to compare health outcomes. More significantly, the data has been instrumental in driving clinician change management in healthcare. He added that the instruments are widely applicable where ever measurable outcomes are required, the difficulty thereafter lies in change management.
In his second lecture entitled “Integrated needs response outcomes (INRO): a Framework for understanding population health and focussing resources”, Dr Soderlund related to a case study from Victoria, Australia. The study was sought to evaluate resource allocation, strategy and policy and performance. It was found that hospital services were one of many factors contributing to the populations health. Socioeconomic status did not significantly affect access to primary heatlhcare, but did restrict patient access to specialist care as suggested by the low utilization of mental healthcare services, most of which are private, in the lower income areas of Victoria. The study showed obesity to be the most influential in illness and healthcare utilization.