Eleanor Jackson Bowers, PHC RIS
With support from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA), PHC RIS recently hosted a visit to Flinders University by Professor John Lavis, Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Exchange, Director of The McMaster Health Forum and Professor in both the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Political Science at McMaster University, Canada.
 During his visit to Adelaide, Professor Lavis presented a public seminar entitled Towards Evidence Informed Health Systems, which was attended by researchers, State Government and State Health representatives. John also developed a collaborative project with PHC RIS which will enable PHC RIS researchers to evaluate the use of his SUPPORT Tools in Australia.
The SUPPORT Tools are used by the McMaster Health Forum in Canada to identify and employ the best available evidence to inform the development of health policy, while situating the evidence within the stakeholder context. The tools include Policy Briefs - systematic and transparent summaries of the best available evidence on areas of policy interest and day long Policy Dialogues with key stakeholders and policy makers, during which an area of policy interest is discussed along with the options for addressing it, implementation issues, and next steps. With Policy Briefs provided as pre-reading, those attending Policy Dialogues are not subjected to presentations. Rather, all participants are seen as part of the problem and part of the solution – a level playing field.
Following his visit to Adelaide, PHC RIS staff accompanied Professor Lavis to Canberra where he conducted a masterclass for DoHA on how to find the best evidence to inform policy making. PHC RIS expects to develop and conduct further such masterclasses in the future.
The video recording of Professor Lavis’ seminar, Towards Evidence Informed Health Systems, is available at <www.phcris.org.au/kb>
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