Michael Buist - Keynote Speaker

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Synopsis

Disruptive technology at the bedside as a tool for patient centred care.

There has always been a tension between the way the medical profession views a patient and the way a patient view their medical problems. The Doctor and medical specialists take a disease stance that is then further broken down into areas of specific expertise (clinical silo’s). The patient views their medical problems more holistically, and is often left to co-ordinate the often-divergent clinical silo’s. To make the situation more complicated much of the medical professional activity is merely “clinical futile cycles” undertaken within an almost feudal system of the traditional referral model of care. The failure of the clinical silos to cooperate let alone coordinate, leads to system inefficiencies (repetition in particular), but more importantly sub optimal patient outcomes even including iatrogenic death. Such a case will be presented, and the learnings from this death, that have resulted in the Patientrack Clinical solution that won the NZHIT Innovation award last year.

Overall, there is a need for disruptive clinical ICT solutions, that create forcing functions to allow for better and more reliable transfer of patient data, to the most appropriate clinical resource, in a timelier fashion. Patientrack is one such solution that “joins the dots” between patient needs by disrupting the usual clinical flow within speciality and hierarchal silos to redirect clinical focus, on what really counts the patient’s problems.

Biography

Professor Michael Buist
Professor of Health Services
University of Tasmania

Professor Michael Buist is a fulltime academic physician and intensive care specialist. He is a graduate of Otago Medical School in New Zealand (MB ChB 1983) and completed specialist training with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in intensive care medicine (FRACP 1991, FCICM 2010). In 2007 he graduated Doctor of Medicine with the submission of his thesis to Monash University; “The epidemiology and prevention of in hospital cardiac arrests.” He also has a graduate certificate in health economics from Monash University (2001). He is currently the Director of Intensive Care at the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie, Tasmania and Honorary Clinical Professor, Faculty of Health, University of Tasmania. In addition he undertakes private physician clinics in a community general practice in Wynyard, Tasmania and is a clinical co-ordinator for Ambulance Tasmania.

Publications and Grants

His academic contributions (66 peer review publications) are in the areas of health reform, evidence-based approaches to improving hospital systems and processes, and clinical engagement, on contemporary issues related to patient safety and patient centred care. He has made significant contributions to patient safety that has had a substantial positive impact on hospitals, clinicians and communities nationally and internationally. This is best exemplified by his two publications on Rapid Response Systems in the British Medical Journal (2002 and 2007) and the Lancet (2005). Professor Buist has been a passionate and public advocate for health system quality and reform with a particular focus on patient safety. He has received a number of awards and distinctions in this area, as detailed in his CV. His academic publications have included both research studies and commentary in the leading international journals, such as the British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and the Medical Journal of Australia. Many of his publications and public output has focussed on how hospital systems can be improved to ensure patient safety. A particular recent publication on “What went wrong with the quality and safety agenda?”, published in the British Medical Journal in 2013, has had a substantial international impact, leading to invitations to speak in a number of national and international fora. This year these have included keynote addresses at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Paris and Risky Business in London.

He is currently a Chief investigator on an ARC linkage grant, “Listen to me, I am really sick” (ARC LP 120100372) and a virtual Tasmanian Health Precinct Project grant on community polypharmacy. In 2014 he has the current Translational research grant application pending: NHMRC Development Grant: B0022592 Remote Electronic patient Clinical Status Monitoring and Intervention; An Australian Rural Regional Hospital Patient Safety Initiative.