Leading healthcare innovators from around the world will convene in Cambridge this month for the sixth International Healthcare Reform Conference, where they will address the pressing challenges facing global health systems.
Held in partnership with Mater Research, The University of Queensland, Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, Nuffield Trust, and the American Board of Family Medicine, the event brings together thought-leaders from the UK, Australia, United States, Canada and New Zealand, including clinicians, policymakers and executive, to explore barriers to reform and propose evidence-based solutions.
This year’s conference will be chaired by Director of the Centre for Health System Reform and Integration (CHSRI) Professor Claire Jackson from Mater Research and The University of Queensland.
“The evidence in many OECD countries now points to health systems struggling to support the rising prevalence of chronic disease and mental health demand,” Prof Jackson said.
“This meeting draws together delegates with deep experience in health system transformation to address ongoing barriers and seek effective solutions.”
Director of The Centre for Professionalism and Value in Health Care in Washington DC Professor Robert Phillips said that the initial thought-leader meeting in 2011 was an important opportunity for seven different countries to share primary care innovations and concerns.
“It launched a special issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine and multiple international collaborations. This meeting continues that momentum,” Prof Phillips said.
RAND Professor of Health Services Research, Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research and University of Cambridge, Professor Stephen Morris said that this conference was timely.
“Given the structural and organisational change happening in many health care systems around the world, and at a time when the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is undergoing significant change, we are thrilled to be hosting this important meeting in Cambridge,” Prof Morris said.
Chair of Nuffield Trust Professor Martin Marshall said there was no shortage of ideas to reform health and care systems around the world.
“Some are evolutionary in nature and some more radical,” Prof Martin said.
“This conference supports the participants to critically analyse these ideas and to design new solutions, using criteria which are all too often absent from the thinking of policy makers, such as: a strong commitment to empirical evidence; identifying what works and when; an independence from party political influences; a sensitivity to the unintended consequences of policy interventions; and an awareness that implementation decisions often require difficult trade-offs.”
The conference will take place at the Møller Institute in Cambridge on 25 and 26 July 2025. For more information about the conference, please contact ihcrconference@mater.org.au.
