Susannah Ahern

After graduating with a MBBS (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, I worked clinically before gaining my Fellowship in Medical Administration. I have worked in senior medical management roles for the last 15 years across a number of Victorian health services and related agencies. I completed a PhD and in 2015 I transitioned to academia as the Head of the Registry Science Unit, Monash University School of Public Health. In 2017 I also became Course Co-ordinator of the Master of Health Services Management and Master of Health Administration Courses at Monash. I have taught in the MHSM units of Clinical Leadership and Management, Introduction to Management (Management Theory and Practice), and the capstone Case Study unit. In 2017 I took over management of the School's Health Services Research Unit, which has now been incorporated into the Registry Science and Research Unit. In 2018 I was appointed to the Board of Better Care Victoria, within the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

I currently directly manage six clinical registries including for dementia, cystic fibrosis, thyroid cancer, bowel cancer and spine surgery, and am on Steering committees of another 4 Monash clinical registries. My research includes policy issues related to clinical registries and data-driven health care, and research related to registry methods and use of registry data for analysing health outcomes. My areas of interest include registry governance and policies/guidelines, quality of clinical registry data, registry data analysis and reporting including risk adjustment and benchmarking, external data access to registry data, and communication of registry outcomes to a broad range of stakeholders. In my various roles I regularly engage clinicians, consumers, carers, academics, professionals, state and national governments and their related agencies. I currently supervise three PhD students.