Writer
Lesley Russell
Dr Lesley Russell is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and a non-resident Fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
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Upturn: A better normal needs a focus on health, not just healthcare
Professor Paul Torzillo discusses the lessons for healthcare in Upturn: A Better Normal After Covid-19. The volume of essays would have benefitted from a more comprehensive analysis of what a “better normal” in health, rather than just healthcare, would look like. But the plea for ensuring the “humanity of medicine” will resound. … Continue reading »
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Uncategorised
David and Goliath battle over community alcohol harms is under way in the NT
There is a David and Goliath battle being waged in the Northern Territory as health and social welfare organisations and Indigenous leaders battle business behemoths and the Territory Government over the issuance of new liquor licences…. Continue reading »
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What is the fate of the MBS Review Task Force and its work? (Croakey Dec 21, 2020)
Five years in the making, the Final Report of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Task Force was quietly released last week. Associate Professor Lesley Russell outlines the wide-ranging findings and how they are likely to shape the future of the MBS…. Continue reading »
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The lack of integration in Australia’s health workforce. There are unconnected silos everywhere.
We urgently needed healthcare reforms :better workforce planning: more equitable workforce distribution,more efficient workforce utilisation,improved workforce productivity and financing reforms to sustain these changes. We call for the restoration of an independent health workforce agency to drive this essential work…. Continue reading »
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Social prescribing links workers
Social prescribing acknowledges that the provision of holistic, patient-centred healthcare must move beyond a medical model and consider the wider social determinants of health. Link workers can provide personalised support to help patients identify and achieve health and wellness goals and linkage into appropriate community services…. Continue reading »
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Tackling substance abuse in the coronavirus pandemic
The social and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are driving more people to substance abuse while also limiting access to prevention, treatment, support and rehabilitation – services already in short supply. Without immediate actions, the consequences will be felt for years to come…. Continue reading »
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Australia’s health care after coronavirus – is there a silver lining to the pandemic?
What have we learned from the coronavirus pandemic that can inform and drive reforms to Australia’s health care system?… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. The Next Community Pharmacy Agreement
In normal, pre-coronavirus pandemic times, we would have expected to see the details and funding for the 7th Community Pharmacy Agreement announced in the May federal budget. But the new agreement, expected to cost some $20 billion over five years, is being negotiated behind closed doors and out of public view…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. The Hidden Death Toll from the Coronavirus Pandemic
As deaths from the coronavirus pandemic climb relentlessly, it is already becoming clear that the official toll is an under-estimate and that significant numbers of deaths caused directly and indirectly by the virus are not being recorded as such…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL Coronavirus Highlights American Inequalities and Trump’s Inadequacies
In the United States there are serious problems with the adequacy and appropriateness of the health measures to control coronavirus and its impact…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Tackling the Emergency Department crisis: Some “what if?” scenarios
The crisis in Emergency Departments is causing harm to patients and staff, and transformative health system re-design is urgently needed…. Continue reading »
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JENNIFER DOGGETT, LESLEY RUSSELL. The Private Health Insurance dilemma: a product in search of a role (Croakey 22-10-19)
Medibank has announced that it will become Australia’s first private health insurer to make potential out-of-pocket (OOP) costs publicly available in a move to shore up public trust, after winning a ‘Shonky’ award from consumer group Choice for “junk” policies that “cost more and deliver less”…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Where is the Focus on Rural Health (Redux) – Looking at You, National Party
The impacts of drought and climate change on health and wellbeing are threatening to increase the growing gap in health status between Australians who live in metropolitan and rural areas. Yet the Morrison Government and its National Party partners have lost focus on rural health, they have failed to focus on a national drought strategy… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Where is the Focus on Rural Health?
It is unfair and poor public policy that mortality and morbidity rates in rural Australia are significantly worse than those in metropolitan areas. There is an urgent need for a National Rural Health Strategy, accompanied by a sustained increase in funding, workforce and other resources, to address this growing health and healthcare disparity…. Continue reading »
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KELSEY CHALMERS and LESLEY RUSSELL. The National Strategy to Reduce OOP costs: will price transparency work?
Reducing patients’ out of pocket (OOP) costs is a major issue for the health policy agenda. But what are the chances that solutions to provide real relief for patients will emerge?… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Restraining the Free Market That is Specialty Medicine
The past week has seen a series of media articles about how some people must fund raise to cover the cost of expensive brain cancer surgery and a paper released from the Actuaries Institute, How to Make Private Health Insurance Healthier, that highlights (yet again) the needed reforms to Australia’s private and publicly funded healthcare…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL: The Budget as an Election Campaign Document
This year’s Government budget documents and the Opposition’s response are budgetary in name only – they should be seen as election campaign commitments. As such, they provide a telling story about the parties’ focus on health and healthcare and the underlying political ideologies. … Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Can Primary Health Networks (PHNs) Drive Needed Primary Care Reforms?
LESLEY RUSSELL. Can Primary Health Networks (PHNs) Drive Needed Primary Care Reforms? A strong primary care system is essential to the equity, efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system and for improvements in health outcomes. However, the structure and funding of primary care has not kept pace with changes to disease patterns, the economic pressures… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. The recommendations from the MBS Review for reforms in primary care: who will ensure these proposals are properly considered?
Hidden in a pack of draft reports from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Taskforce that were released by the Morrison Government without fanfare just before Christmas are a series of recommendations that, if effectively funded and implemented, could begin the long and difficult task of reforming Australia’s primary care system…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. ACSQHC Third Australian Atlas of Healthcare Variation 2018.
The 2018 version of the Australian Atlas of Healthcare Variation was released on December 11. This is the third such annual atlas, which examines differences in healthcare use according to where people live within Australia and is produced by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in partnership with the Australian Institute… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL: Time to make dental care an election issue
The Victorian Government’s election commitment to a $395.8 million program to provide free dental care to schoolchildren will be welcome in a state where affordable and timely access to dental care is increasingly difficult. It’s time for a concerted campaign to ensure that improved access to dental care and better prevention initiatives are on the… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL.Tackling the wicked problems in health – by building bridges with social services.
None of the “wicked’ problems in health – obesity, mental illness and suicide, chronic illness, ageing – will be solved with just hospitals, doctors, nurses and prescription pads. They all require resources beyond those provided by the health care system. That’s not news; there are very few health professionals who deny the impact of the… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. The dental divide – and the decay of public dental services (ABC News, 21.08.18)
The noisy public debate about patients’ out-of-pocket costs and their consequences reaches a crescendo when it comes to oral health and dental care…. Continue reading »
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Ending the medical / dental divide (redux).
In a piece published in the Medical Journal of Australia in December 2014, I called for an end to the artificial medical/dental divide. At the same time, writing in The Conversation, I outlined six first steps towards the better integration of dental and medical care to improve health outcomes and contain overall health care spending…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Ageless At Altitude
Residents of Colorado’s most picturesque mountain towns in Summit, Pitkin and Eagle counties live longer than anyone else in the United States. Recent data collections, research and comparisons with the so-called Blue Zones – those few places where people live longer and healthier than anywhere else on earth – highlight why the Colorado Rocky Mountains… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Who cares for the carers?
Governments have yet to create a coherent strategy to help the almost three million Australians providing informal care…. Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL . How knee replacement surgery highlights issues of access, affordability and best practice in Australia’s two-tiered healthcare system – Part 2
Part 2 – Best practice and improved surgery outcomes As the population ages, total knee replacement surgery is becoming commonplace. It is one of the most expensive surgical procedures. Most replacements are performed as elective surgery in private hospitals. Those patients who must rely on the public system are waiting longer than ever. In… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. How knee replacement surgery highlights issues of access, affordability and best practice in Australia’s two-tiered healthcare system – Part 1
PART 1 – Access and affordability As the population ages, total knee replacement surgery is becoming commonplace. It is one of the most expensive surgical procedures. Most replacements are performed as elective surgery in private hospitals. Those patients who must rely on the public system are waiting longer than ever. … Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL: Private Health Insurance: the focus on premiums ignores the cost of using it
Last week’s announcement from the Turnbull Government purported to be about making private health insurance “simpler and more affordable” but in fact delivered more for health insurance funds’ bottom lines than for Australians’ budgets and highlighted the contorted, confused and controversial logic that underpins the government’s push requiring taxpayers to contribute to the financing of… Continue reading »
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Private Health Insurance – a low-value proposition?
Private health insurance has been allowed to undermine the universality Australian healthcare to the extent that international experts now downgrade the Australian system in comparison to those of similar countries because it is two-tiered. Growing public concerns about increasing premiums, unexpected out-of-pocket costs and inequalities have led to a focus on whether health insurance provides… Continue reading »
