Health Research

​Research is critical to improving the experience and outcomes of care for patients. Research creates exciting new opportunities for prevention, diagnosis and treatment and builds our evidence base for best practice health care delivery. Collaboration among researchers, policy makers, service users, health managers and clinicians can lead to findings that are more likely to be innovative and positively inform health decisions.

This category recognises research as defined by the National Health and Medical Research Council​​:

• Basic Science Research: seeks to understand the biological processes that underpin health and disease at the molecular, cellular, organ system and whole body levels. It may be conducted in vitro, in vivo and/or in silico. It may use, but is not limited to, cells, tissues or other materials of human origin or from relevant animal models.
• Clinical Medicine and Science Research: seeks to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of human diseases and conditions. It may involve interaction with patients and/or the use of clinical diagnostic materials or patient data.
• Health Services Research: seeks to understand and improve the effectiveness, quality, safety, social and environmental dimensions of health care including access, distribution, timeliness and efficiency. Includes implementation science and translation research.
• Public Health Research: which seeks to improve the health of a population through the prevention of disease, prolongation of life and promotion of health and wellbeing. It includes research to understand the social, behavioural, environmental and other determinants of health and disease.

Please note that quality assurance projects and systematic reviews without an associated empirical data gathering component are not eligible for this category.

Nominations must demonstrate outstanding achievements in one or more of the following:

• using both existing and emerging research evidence to ensure the delivery of safe and dependable care.
• understanding how research translates into achieving better outcomes that are important to our patients and the community.
• helping clinicians and health decision-makers effectively find and use research.
• creating research partnerships or collaborations involving clinicians, patients, research organisations, precincts, networks, local health districts, key agencies, specialty networks, health organisations, universities and industry. These collaborations should have resulted in exceptional instances of research that influenced policy or practice.
• recognition by decision-makers of the impact of research on their policies or practices.
• leveraging eHealth, health information, and data analytics to support and utilise health and medical research.