Ralph G Audehm

Ralph Audehm is a full-time general practitioner working in Melbourne. He has had leadership roles in teaching, hospitals, and at state-wide and national levels in the development of health policy around heart disease, diabetes, and prediabetes.

He continues to have significant engagement with Primary Healthcare Networks, the Improvement Foundation and the Primary Care Diabetes Society of Australia. He is a foundation member of the RACGP National Faculty of Specific Interests (Diabetes) as well as the Primary Care Diabetes Society of Australia and continues to serve as a board member. He was closely related to the rollout of the national diabetes prevention program and in mainstreaming of the DAFNE program, an intervention for people with type 1 diabetes.

He has been involved in clinical research since 2000. He has integrated research with his clinical work, resulting in publications in journals including the MJA and BMJ. He has established collaborative research links with the Department of GP Aged, Chronic Disease, and Equity research group. He was a Committee Member of the Victoria Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network and was recently recognized at the General Practice and Primary Health Care Academic Centre for excellent contribution to research by a General Practitioner.

He was the Clinical lead for the expert reference panel, Australian Primary Care Collaboratives, and through this quality improvement work and implementation of best practice guidelines was able to lead in a successful program to tackle the frequent avoidable hospital presentations for heart failure with The Northern Hospital. This was also demonstrated in his work in underprivileged communities such as Broadmeadows to improve health and wellbeing in a very underserved population – again using a quality improvement lens and implementing systems to improve outcomes. This was also highly successful in the refugee program he set up at Dianella Community health.

He is keen on translating guidelines into practice. Their involvement with the Improvement Foundation, an organization that promotes quality improvement in primary care, is instrumental in their reach into primary care.