Job Title: Senior Research Fellow, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute; Mental Health program lead, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, Flinders University; Professor of Psychiatry, Flinders University
Bio: Malcolm Battersby, a 2003-04 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is senior lecturer in psychiatry at Flinders University and director of the Flinders Human Behaviour and Health Research Unit. He was a chief investigator of the SA HealthPlus Coordinated Care trial in South Australia. Battersby has a strong interest in behavior change, at both the patient and the clinician level. He has worked extensively with general practitioners and other health professionals to develop a generic assessment and care planning approach for clinicians to assist patients with self management of chronic conditions (The Flinders Model). He has also established the Master of Mental Health Science course in the use of cognitive and behavioral therapy for anxiety, depression and other conditions. His research has included the development of the Partners in Health scale to measure self management capacity, and four projects in aboriginal diabetes, respiratory, cardiac and mental illness communities as part of the South Australian Chronic Disease Self-Management program. He has provided a report on recommended actions for the self-management component of the Australian National Chronic Disease Strategy. Battersby was recently awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council grant with the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia for the Centre for Clinical Research Excellence in Aboriginal Health. He has been appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Chronic Illness.
Placement: Group Health Cooperative
Mentors: Edward Wagner, M.D., M.P.H., Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound; Michael von Korff, Sc. D., Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound
Project: Chronic Disease Self-Management Programs: Scope of Programs and What Works for Whom in the U.S.?
Description: Battersby's project sought to determine which factors in the patient, clinician, and care system facilitate self-management behaviors. He also examined whether an Australian model of self-management education (the Flinders model) is applicable in a U.S. setting, with an emphasis on Native American populations and patients with mental health problems. He undertook a literature review of evidence for self-management interventions in primary care, a key informant survey of self-management programs, and site visits and key informant interviews.