Future Healthcare: Management challenges and solutions

Professor Graeme Currie, Professor of Public Management, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (UK)

Graeme Currie is Professor of Public Management at Warwick Business School UK. His research focuses upon leadership, service improvement and workforce development in health and social care settings. He leads large scale research programmes funded by National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) focused upon implementation of evidence-based service improvement in West Midlands England , Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) focused upon innovation to support care leavers, UK’s Department for Education focused upon service improvement for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), Global Alliance for Chronic Disease focused upon implementation of health and well-being interventions in Nigerian and Indian schools. In a pre-academic work life, Graeme worked in organisation development for the NHS and for a now-defunct UK car manufacturer.

Professor Zoe Radnor, Pro Vice Chancellor, College of Business and Social Sciences, Aston University (UK)

Previously, Professor Radnor has held roles as Pro Vice Chancellor, EDI; Strategy and Planning for City, University of London, and inaugural Dean for University of Leicester School of Business. Her research interest is performance/ process improvement and service management within public sector organisations.  Prof Radnor has led research projects for government and healthcare organisations, evaluating the use of ‘lean’ and associated techniques. In 2024 Prof Radnor was named in the 2024 Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists in the World list. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the British Academy of Management (FBAM).  She sits on a number of boards including the Athena Swan Governance Committee, and the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA).

Professor Shivani Sharma, Professor of Health Equity and Inclusion, Aston University, United Kingdom

Shivani Sharma (she/her) is a professor of health equity and inclusion at Aston University, UK. Her research focuses on transforming health service design and practice to reduce equity gaps for adults living with long-term conditions, whilst navigating multiple social and wider determinants of health.

In parallel, Prof Sharma has worked to ensure that research cultures prioritise diversity so that health innovation drives fairer outcomes for those currently under-served by science. Some of her contributions include validation of culturally adapted screening for depression in NHS kidney services in England, and assessing feasibility of referral into novel autism intervention at the point of childhood diagnosis. She acts as the co-chair of both Kidney Research UK’s health inequalities committee and the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin’s (BAPIO) Health Research Institute.

Professor Helena Teede, Director of the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation, Monash University

Prof Helena Teede AM is a clinician academic and endocrinologist at Monash University in Australia. She holds an NHMRC Investigator Fellowship and is Director of the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation with a team of 120 and leads the Centre for Research Excellence for Women’s Health in Reproductive Life. Prof Teede has over 700 publications and $80M in career grant funding, mostly as CIA. She is President of the International Society of Endocrinology. She has a focus on system change and implementation in healthcare as well as in Learning health systems.

Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Founding Director, Australian Institute of Health Innovation and Director, Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, Macquarie University

Professor Braithwaite is a leading health services and systems researcher with an international reputation for his work investigating and contributing to systems improvement. He has extensive expertise in researching acute settings, leadership, management and change, quality and safety, standards and accreditation, health sector reform and the restructuring of health services. His most recent work looks at the future of healthcare to 2030; learning health systems; applying implementation science to healthcare problems; and health systems’ capacity to cope with climate change. He has published over 888 refereed contributions, 17 books, and presented at conferences on over 1,511 occasions.

Professor Johanna Westbrook, Director of the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, AIHI, Macquarie University

Professor Johanna Westbrook is Professor of Health Informatics and Patient Safety, and Director of the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University. She is internationally recognised for her research evaluating the effects of digital systems in health care, which has led to significant advances in our understanding of how clinical information systems deliver (or fail to deliver) expected benefits.

Her highly applied research has supported translation of this evidence into policy, practice, and IT system design changes. She has extensive expertise in researching patient safety issues in adults, paediatrics and aged care settings, and presented to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety regarding the contribution that informatics can make in improving quality. She has undertaken a large body of research on medication safety. Prof Westbrook is Co-Director of the Safety, Quality, Informatics and Leadership Program at Harvard University.

Prof Westbrook has received many awards for her research including the Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Award from the National Health and Medical Research Council; Health Services Researcher of the year by Research Australia, and a Telstra Health Brilliant Women in Digital Health Award. Prof Westbrook has published >600 papers and been awarded >$80 in research grants.

Professor Ian Kirkpatrick, Professor of Public Management, School for Business and Society, University of York.

Previously, Professor Kirkpatrick worked at the Warwick Business School and the Universities of Leeds (Business) and Cardiff (Business). Prof Kirkpatrick’s research interests are in the area of the changing management of public services and professional organisations. He has conducted a number of studies focusing on developments in social services and healthcare, most recently drawing on large scale (routine) administrative data sources to profile the management characteristics of health care organisations and the impact of managers. Other projects have focused on the development of professional associations in the US and the UK and the management of professional service firms in legal services and management consulting.

Prof Kirkpatrick has published widely on these topics in leading academic journals and a number of jointly authored books. His most recent book, published with Cambridge Elements, explores recent theories and trends in the sociology of professions (with Daniel Muzio). Prof Kirkpatrick’s research has also attracted considerable media interest, most recently his study focusing on the impact of management consultants on performance in the English NHS.

Professor Nicola Burgess, Professor of Operations Management, School for Business and Society, University of York

Prof Burgess holds Visiting Fellowships at Warwick Business School and Aston Business School. Her research focuses on service improvement, quality, patient safety, and sustainable transformation within public service delivery. A recognised authority in the field, Prof Burgess is the co-author of the world-leading textbook series on Operations Management (Slack, Brandon-Jones, and Burgess) and a co-author of edited book Shaping High Quality, Affordable and Equitable Healthcare: Meaningful Innovation and System Transformation (Burgess and Currie, 2023). She also contributes her expertise as a Fellow with The Health Foundation and as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and her work is published in leading international journals such as Public Administration Review, Journal of Operations Management, Human Resource Management and the British Medical Journal.