NHMRC opened this Targeted Call for Research (TCR) into Addressing the Needs of People with High Healthcare Service Utilisation in Australia on 11 December 2024 and applications closed on 26 March 2025.
It is widely recognised that many factors contribute to high healthcare service utilisation. The Productivity Commission reported that in 2021–22 over 3 million Australians attended hospital emergency departments with conditions that could have been managed in primary care suggesting that access to primary care is an issue to be addressed for the long term. Further, Australians face unique health challenges due to their geographic location. Data shows that people living in rural and remote areas have higher rates of hospitalisations, deaths and injury and have poorer access to, and use of, primary health care services, than people living in major cities.
Understanding and addressing the needs of patients with high healthcare service utilisation alongside the challenges faced by healthcare providers will create a more balanced and efficient system. This TCR was prioritised by the NHMRC Targeted Calls for Research Commonwealth States and Territories Joint Working Committee.
Successful applications for this TCR will:
- examine high healthcare service utilisation from the points of view of people with lived experience and relevant stakeholders (that is, acute and primary care clinicians, funders, policy makers, service providers)
- gain in-depth understanding of the challenges facing people with different types of high healthcare service utilisation when managing their health, and the challenges facing clinicians and health systems in trying to meet the needs of these vulnerable patients
- investigate the effectiveness of existing services and programs by providing an evidence-base to support widespread uptake of services and models of care that are proven to improve patient outcomes and patient journeys.
The expected outcomes of this TCR are to have:
- a better understanding of high healthcare service utilisation by geographic area, to inform models of care/services to address different types of healthcare service utilisation, leading to changes in how health services are delivered
- a better understanding of the issue of high healthcare service utilisation by stakeholders, including policy makers and funders, that would inform health policy development on the issue
- increased knowledge and use of co-design methodologies between people with lived experience of high healthcare service utilisation, researchers, clinicians, and government agencies, with the potential to embed its use as a standard way of working when designing new models of care
- increased consumer and clinician knowledge of population health through working together, combining lived-experience, geographical, clinical and system knowledge and skills
- targeted preventative health identified through evidence and including local priorities, using strategies that are feasible, acceptable, and delivered in partnership with communities
- increased local capacity for this type of complex research
- improved translation of research into policy and practice.
