Innovation and research

Ochre Health has a strong focus on supporting and facilitating primary healthcare research, partnering with universities and research organisations around Australia.

We collaborate with a number of universities on research, education and healthcare delivery projects. We also provide care and related services to the students and staff of many of these universities, and we facilitate access to GPs with specialisations in the key areas of sexual and mental health as part of our support service offering.

Key Ochre Health collaborations

Our major university collaborations include:

  • University of Canberra – Ochre Health Medical Centre Bruce is located on campus and we have a research and data sharing alliance with the University which has focused on various projects, most recently a trial of automated bedside reporting. The clinic is also a training facility for the University’s nursing faculty, taking intern placements, and it is the ACT venue for Fellowship workshops and final exams for the Royal Australian College of General Practice.
  • Charles Sturt University – Ochre Health Medical Centre Bathurst was built on the campus as a facility for both a primary healthcare delivery and training. The clinic supports students on training placements, mainly in paramedics and nursing, as well as hosting community programs organised and promoted by the University.
  • University of the Sunshine Coast – Ochre Health Medical Centre Sippy Downs is situated alongside the campus and runs health clinics and various trials in partnership with the University.
  • Griffith University – our Sunshine Coast clinics partner with the University to take medical student placements.
  • University of Wollongong – we have a GP research and training agreement under which the University co-funded the development of our Grafton medical centre where we now host two of the University’s student interns on an ongoing basis.
  • University of Tasmania – we run a major GP intern training program in partnership with the University and the Tasmanian Health Service. This involves UTAS interns working in five of our rural medical centres across Tasmania for placements of 13 week’s duration.

Ochre Health also works on projects with various independent clinical research organisations around Australia. One such group, Paratus Clinical, has facilities situated within our Bruce Medical Centre in Canberra. Some of the doctors who engage Ochre Health have recently participated in Paratus Clinical studies and trials related to conditions including COVID-19, type 2 diabetes and influenza.

In addition, we operate in a flexible and adaptable way, which sometimes means we do things first or we do things a bit differently from our competitors. We were the first private group in Australia engaged to support the roster of a public hospital, the first to link a medical centre to a hospital via a VPN, and the first to collate diabetes data (HbA1c) for an entire community.