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Towards the delivery of appropriate health care in Australia

William B Runciman, Enrico W Coiera, Richard O Day, Natalie A Hannaford, Peter D Hibbert, Tamara D Hunt, Johanna I Westbrook and Jeffrey Braithwaite
Med J Aust 2012; 197 (2): . || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10799
Published online: 16 July 2012

A challenging proposal draws on the lessons learnt from the CareTrack study to pave the way towards better health care

For decades, there have been concerns about the extent to which the health system provides the right care to those who need it in a cost-effective, timely manner. In Australia, there has been much discussion1 and marked improvements in some areas,2-4 but the provision of highly variable and often inappropriate care remains a nationwide problem.1,5-7


  • 1 University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA.
  • 2 Australian Patient Safety Foundation, Adelaide, SA.
  • 3 Australian Institute of Health Innovation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.
  • 4 St Vincent’s Clinical School and School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.


Correspondence: bill.runciman@apsf.net.au

Competing interests:

No relevant disclosures.

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