New designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Acute Care
We’re excited to announce that our School’s Division of Acute and Critical Care has been designated a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Acute Care.
This recognition reflects the team’s longstanding contribution to emergency, critical and perioperative care – collectively referred to by the WHO as ECO care. As a Collaborating Centre, they’ll work with WHO and regional and global partners to strengthen acute care systems, especially in low-resource settings, where timely, high-quality care is critical to saving lives and preventing long-term disability.
Centre Director Professor Gerard O’Reilly is a clinician-researcher at Monash’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, the National Trauma Research Institute, and leads Global Programs at the Alfred hospital’s Emergency and Trauma Centre. He’s thrilled about the increased opportunity to translate research and knowledge into regional action, saying “Our researchers have steadily built a strong reputation for improving acute care systems and building capacity not just in Australia, but in neighbouring low-resource areas. It’s been incredibly rewarding for us as a team, and we’re looking forward to continuing that work with this additional mandate behind us.”
What is a WHO Collaborating Centre?
WHO Collaborating Centres are expert institutions that support the organisation’s mission through focused technical work. They may contribute to research, training, guideline development, policy advice, and implementation support. Centres are designated for four-year renewable terms and become part of an international network of WHO-aligned institutions working on shared health goals.
As a Collaborating Centre for Acute Care, the work will include:
- Advising on regional and country-level priorities for acute care
- Supporting development and testing of new tools and approaches
- Contributing to WHO-led initiatives, especially around quality improvement
- Participating in the global Acute Care Action Network (ACAN), which meets regularly to advance shared priorities
This designation aligns with World Health Assembly Resolution WHA76.2, passed in 2023, which calls for universal access to integrated emergency, critical, and operative care. With the first phase of implementation now underway, particularly in lower-resource countries, our new Collaborating Centre is well positioned to help shape regional and global activities to strengthen systems of acute care, including their capacity to provide local responses to disasters.
The initial focus
The initial proposed program of work includes three key areas that leverage our School’s existing expertise and regional partnerships:
- Triage systems – Developing, adapting and advocating for safe and efficient triage models, particularly suited to low-resource settings
- Quality improvement – Supporting hospitals and health systems to improve the safety and consistency of acute care delivery
- Data and registries – Helping build and maintain systems that can track acute care performance, guide investment, and support research
The work will build on the deep experiences of the team in leading regional capacity-building projects, and the strong existing partnerships they have with ECO care leaders across the Asia-Pacific region.
Spotlight: Improving regional emergency care
Dr Robert Mitchell, an Alfred Health emergency physician and public health researcher with our School, has spent over a decade working with colleagues in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific nations to strengthen emergency care systems.
In 2020, he led a project piloting a colour-coded triage system in PNG hospitals, which proved vital during the COVID-19 response. In 2024, his contributions were recognised with the Premier’s Award for Health and Medical Research in Victoria, for evaluating a triage tool now influencing practice more broadly.
Rob has also played a key role in building regional health professional capacity through training programs, contributing to WHO, regional and national guidelines for implementation of emergency care capacity-building activities including WHO’s Basic Emergency Care course.
Dr Georgina Phillips is an emergency physician at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, and recently completed her PhD with our School, in which she explored the role of WHO leadership and governance in building and sustaining emergency care systems across the Pacific region.
Georgina’s PhD built on her 20+ years of developing capacity in emergency care teaching, research, advocacy, leadership and peer-support in nations including Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Timor-Leste and Myanmar.
As part of her work, she holds visiting emergency medicine consultant appointments with the medical schools at Fiji National University, the University of PNG, and formerly the University of Medicine, Yangon, Myanmar. She’s also supported WHO programs, ECO agenda and ACAN through her global work with the Primary Trauma Care Foundation, Indo-Pacific emergency care advocacy and capacity support activities, and more recently through collaboration to implement the WHO Basic Emergency Care course.
Spotlight: improving regional critical care
Dr David Pilcher is an Intensive Care Specialist at Alfred Health and Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Clinical Quality Registry. He has developed systems for monitoring intensive care capacity, outcomes and resources which have been adapted and adopted in multiple countries.
Over the past 20 years, he has supported development of Intensive Care data registries in Australia and throughout the world. He is a founding member of the Linking of Global Intensive Care (LOGIC) consortium which aims to strengthen safety systems and research collaborations for clinicians caring for critically ill patients throughout Asia, Africa, South America and Europe. He is presently involved in the introduction of ICU databases in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other pacific countries.
What’s next?
The nine staff working on the new Centre will build on existing momentum in work that is grounded in practical health system improvement. Over the next four years, they’ll collaborate with WHO and regional partners to support policy development, implement new resources, and help countries deliver safer, more equitable acute care — particularly where the need is greatest.
They look forward to sharing more about upcoming projects as they take shape, and working with partners across the region to make a meaningful difference.
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