MBBS (Uni of Qld) MD (UQ) MPH (UQ) CertHEcon (Monash) GradCert Management (QUT) FRACGP FAICD
Professor in General Practice and Primary Care Research,
Director, Centre for Health System Reform and Integration, University of Qld
 
Claire has been active in integrated care innovation, education and research for many years, and has been extensively involved in health services research and reform since the early 90s. She has been a member of both the national Primary Health Care Advisory Group and the National Primary Care Strategy Expert Reference Group - guiding forces behind Australia’s national primary care reform.  She provided a commissioned paper for the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission on new models in primary care. Her description of the ‘beacon’ practice model, piloted at Inala Primary Care, was adopted as both the clinical prototype for the Australian Association of Academic General Practitioner’s endorsed model for GP Superclinics, and the basis for UQ’s successful $ 10 million Superclinic tenders.  Inala Primary Care won RACGP Qld ‘Practice of the Year’ in 2009.
 
Since 2009, Claire has been a national driver in the Health Care Home initiative – publishing and presenting widely on the topic and sitting on national Advisory Committees for both Ministers Plebisek and Ley.  She has been Clinical Director of two $ 2.5 million Centres for Research Excellence in Primary Care Reform - one exploring new models of integrated care between hospital and community, the other investigating the impact of researcher and end-user ‘co-creation’ on clinical quality, patient experience, governance and models of care. She is currently Director, MRI-UQ Centre for Health System Reform and Integration
 
Her current primary area of research interest is in health system reform involving primary care, a topic on which she has published and presented internationally. Her MD Thesis was entitled ‘Building an Integrated Health Care Delivery System around Primary Care’.  With Inge de Jong, Claire co-authored “Achieving Effective Health Care Integration – the Essential Guide”, a publication that sold over 1000 copies.  Claire was heavily involved in the development of Australian Divisions of General Practice, Medicare Locals, and Primary Health Networks and was a Ministerial appointment to lead the National Review of Afterhour’s Primary Health Care in 2014. She is Chair of UQ’s highly successful bienniel International Health System Reform Conferences.
 
Claire is a Board member of the Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia Ltd (HCF), Australia’s largest NFP private health insurer, and was Chair of Brisbane North Primary Health Network from 2015-17.  She sits on the Editorial Advisory Committee of the Medical Journal of Australia and is a member of both the Ministerial Expert Advisory Group Primary Care Reform, and MBS Review Taskforce, General Practice and Primary Care Clinical Committee.  She is a past President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (2010-12) and is an active clinician and GP trainer in Brisbane.
 
She was a 2014 Finalist in the Qld Telstra Business Women’s ‘Business Innovation’ and ‘Community and Government’ Awards, and is current President, Sandakan Prisoner Of War Family and Friends Qld.