Steering Committee
GoldNet Research is led by a steering group.
Chair
Professor Nick Zwar
Bond University
Nick is Executive Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and conjoint Professor of General Practice in the School of Population Health at University of New South Wales. He has a national and international reputation in health services research on prevention and management of chronic illness, with a focus on respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. He also has a long-term interest in travel medicine and as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners he is also a Fellow of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine. Nick has over 230 peer reviewed publications.
Nick has experience with practice-based research having previously led a network at the University of New South Wales and was a strong advocate for research networks when he was president of the Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care from 2013-2015. His current professional memberships and positions are: Chair Expert Advisory Group RACGP smoking cessation guidelines; Member COPD-X Guideline, Lung Foundation Australia, Chair, RACGP Travel Medicine Specific Interest Group, Co-chair Australian Professional Association on Alcohol and Other Drugs (APSAD) Smoking Cessation Professionals Special Interest Group.
Nick has been a GP for more than 30 years and works part-time at Medical on Miami.
Steering Group Members
Professor Mark Morgan
Bond University
Mark is Professor of General Practice at Bond University and Associate Dean of External Engagement for the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine. His research interests include shared decision making, antimicrobial stewardship, multimorbidity, patient safety and using GP data to improve health outcomes.
Mark is a GP with over 20 years’ Australian experience working in rural, regional and urban general practice, currently working at Eastbrooke Family Clinic in Varsity. He is the Chair of Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Expert Committee for Quality Care, where he advises on healthcare policy and the development of guidelines.
Mark’s current appointments include chairing the national Practice Incentive Program Quality Improvement (PIP QI) Data Governance Committee. He is a member of the National Preventative Health Strategy, Health Care Homes Implementation Advisory Group and the Australian Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (ASTAG).
Dr Jerneja Sveticic
Gold Coast Primary Health Network
Jerneja is a researcher and health informatician with a history of working in the academia, the government and community sector. She was awarded Bachelor and Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and completed a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in 2020.
For over 10 years, she has worked as a researcher in mental health and suicide prevention during which time she published numerous peer-review journal articles and book chapters. She currently works as a Senior Health Intelligence Analyst with the Gold Coast Primary Health Network.
Associate Professor Kylie Vuong
Griffith University
Kylie is Associate Professor in Primary Care and Academic Lead in General Practice at Griffith University. She undertakes collaborative teaching and research to improve patient health outcomes through whole person patient-centred care. Kylie is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
She was awarded BSc (Medicine) and MBBS degrees from UNSW Sydney, a MIPH (Merit) degree from The University of Sydney, and PhD in Cancer Epidemiology from The University of Sydney.She has developed, by use of data from a large Australian population-based case-control study, a melanoma risk prediction model based on self-assessed risk factors. This melanoma risk prediction model has been adopted by the Melanoma Institute Australia as an online Melanoma Prediction Tool. She is currently working to improve cancer survivorship through lifestyle improvement strategies and shared care planning.
Kylie is passionate about primary health care and general practice.
Assistant Professor Laura Baxter
General Practice Gold Coast
She undertook a BSc (Biomedical Sciences) and Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Southampton, UK and completed her intern and JHO years in the UK before moving to the Gold Coast. She completed four years of Emergency Medicine training before embarking on GP training which she is just about to complete.
Laura has a passion for evidence-based, preventative and holistic care as well as a special interest in women’s health, antenatal shared care, postnatal care and breastfeeding support and paediatrics.
Dr Laura is also an Assistant Professor (Clinical Practice) at Bond University where she has been teaching medical students clinical practice skills for the last eight years.
Assistant Professor Loai Albarqouni
Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University
Loai is MD MSc ClinEpi PhD, is a medically-trained epidemiologist and postdoctoral researcher, graduated with distinction in medicine (Alquds University, Palestine), a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology (Ludwig-Maximillian-Universität München, Germany), and a PhD in Evidence-Based Practice (Bond University). Loai currently works as a postdoctoral research fellow and academic of evidence-based medicine at the Institute of Evidence-Based Healthcare (IEBH) at Bond University. Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University Dr Albarqouni is an early career researcher with a focus on improving the uptake of evidence-based practice in primary care. His research expertise includes evidence synthesis, evidence-based practice, shared decision making, and overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Anthea Blower
Practice Manager: Hope Island and Helensvale Medical Centres
Anthea Blower is a Certified Practice Manager who has worked in Gold Coast general practices for close to 30 years. She was awarded the AAPM QLD Practice. Manager of the Year in 2016 and currently serves on the GCPHN Primary Health Improvement Committee. Anthea is passionate about improving general practice, and has introduced a range of initiatives to enhance the business development and service delivery options for patients.
Alexandra Davidson
GoldNet Coordinator, Bond University
Ali is GoldNet's coordinator and is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University, with a special interest and skills in qualitative research methods. She comes from a healthcare professional background as an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD), having worked across a range of settings including primary healthcare, public and private hospitals, mental health, aged care, and corporate health. Ali’s doctoral research explored the patient role in interprofessional collaborative practice in primary care. She aims to ensure that the consumer and clinician voice is always heard in health service research, design, and implementation. Ali is also a teaching fellow at Bond, teaching into undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare and health sciences degrees.
