Dr Anton Pak
About
I’m a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health at The University of Queensland. My expertise is in the area of applied health economics research. Specifically, I’m passionate about providing digital health solutions to help people improve their health behaviours. I believe that innovative digital health interventions can enable people to make better health decisions.
I collaborate with hospitals, primary care facilities and health consumer groups to develop and implement digital health innovations that can improve patient experience, access to healthcare services and the efficiency of the health system.
I am currently exploring how predictive modelling can improve patient flow, satisfaction, and outcomes in Emergency Departments.
Research interests
Health economics and digital health interventions: measuring the effectiveness of digital health solutions in improving patient experience, health outcomes and efficiencies in the health system.
Economic modelling of health behaviours: the choices of patients and consumers with respect to healthcare utilisation, particularly in primary and emergency care settings.
Applied econometrics and machine learning in health care: using novel statistical approaches to achieve higher accuracy of emergency department waiting time forecasts.
Research impact
I’m dedicated to translating my research into practice and have presented my research outcomes to government and industry.
In partnership with the Princess Alexandra Hospital and with support from the Emergency Medicine Foundation, I designed and delivered an AI-based digital health innovation. My innovation provides patients with accurate waiting time forecasts and potentially improves their patient experience in emergency departments. It can also generate efficiency gains across the emergency department network. For example, non-urgent patients choosing to go to hospitals with the lowest forecasted waiting times could lead to more even distribution of patients across the network and a reduction in the average waiting times.
In addition to industry contributions, my research has informed national and international policy documents. It has been cited in reports by the European commission Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and the African Economic Research Consortium. Furthermore, I was an invited speaker at the health economics modelling webinar hosted by the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific region.
My work has also been featured on national radio and TV media outlets, such as WIN News, ABC Radio, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, and Scientific American.
Featured projects
| Project title | Funding amount | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Health and Behavioural Sciences Early Career Academic Research Accelerator Award UQ Seed Funding Scheme | ~$10k | 2022 - 2022 |
| ED waiting time predictions in real-time: development of data acquisition systems and performance evaluation of advanced statistical models Emergency Medicine Foundation | ~$40k | 2021 - 2022 |
Contact
To find out how we can collaborate and bring value to your organisation, email me or connect via social networks:
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