Primary Care Research

Our work is funded by grants from prestigious organisations, including the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and other key healthcare stakeholders, such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). We actively collaborate with general practitioners (GPs), healthcare teams and community organisations to ensure practical and real-world impact.We are a dedicated and collaborative research group within the School of Medicine, Sydney, focused on strengthening primary care and improving health outcomes for communities across Australia. Our work spans chronic disease management, preventive care, health services delivery, and realworld evaluation of innovative models of care.

A core focus of our program is implementation science — understanding how to effectively embed evidencebased guidelines, digital tools, and new systems of care into everyday general practice. We partner closely with GPs, practice teams, community organisations, and national health bodies to ensure our research leads to sustainable improvements in patient care and health system performance.

What we do

Our expertise

Our team brings together experts in general practice, chronic disease prevention, digital health innovation, and primary care transformation. We specialise in:

• Implementation of evidence based guidelines
  Ensuring new clinical evidence and best practice recommendations are adopted and sustained in realworld primary care settings.
• Digital innovation in general practice
  Designing, trialling, and embedding tools such as digital self screening, next generation monitoring devices, and technology enabled self management programs.
  (AF SMART, BREATHE SMART, NEXTGENBP, digital pharmacy empowerment projects)
• Improving chronic disease management
  Leading national projects in cardiovascular disease prevention, hypertension treatment, familial hypercholesterolaemia detection, and atrial fibrillation screening.
• Collaborative, practice based research
  Working directly with general practitioners, multidisciplinary primary care teams, and community partners to codesign and evaluate practical solutions that work in everyday practice.
• Translation of evidence into measurable health outcomes
  Deploying implementation frameworks that improve uptake, scale up, and longterm sustainability of effective care models across practices and systems.

Collaborative projects

Our work is funded by grants from prestigious organisations, including the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and other key healthcare stakeholders, such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). We actively collaborate with general practitioners (GPs), healthcare teams and community organisations to ensure practical and real-world impact.

Meet our team

We are a growing and dynamic team of researchers committed to excellence in primary care. Led by Professor Charlotte Hespe, our team brings together experts from diverse fields.

• Professor Charlotte Hespe AM

  Head of General Practice & Primary Care Research
  University of Notre Dame Australia

  Professor Charlotte Hespe is a nationally recognised GP academic and primary care researcher whose program of work focuses on implementation science, long-term adoption of evidence based guidelines, and embedding effective models of care into everyday practice. Her research is centred on improving chronic disease detection, preventive care, digital innovation, and the sustainability of clinical improvements in real-world general practice.

  She leads or contributes to a substantial suite of MRFF funded projects, including as CIA for the BREATHE SMART project, which implements a digital breathlessness self-screening pathway in general practice.

  Professor Hespe was awarded Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2024 for her significant service to general medicine, research, and mentorship.

  She continues to work clinically as a GP and co-owner of Glebe Family Medical Practice and served as Chair of the RACGP NSW & ACT Board (2018–2024).

• Associate Professor Katrina Giskes

  Associate Professor Katrina Giskes is a GP and Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. She is a lead investigator in the BREATHE SMART project, integrating self-screening tools for breathlessness into GP clinics. Her research interests are in patient self-screening for chronic conditions using digital technologies in primary care and supporting the preventive health capacity of GPs. She trained as a Dietitian/Nutritionist and holds a PhD in Public Health. As a GP, she is affiliated with the Ochre Health Network.

• Dr Margot Woods

  Dr Margot Woods is the Discipline Leader of General Practice at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney. She graduated in medicine from the University of Newcastle and has worked in hospitals across Sydney and London. She has been a practice owner and holds a VMO position for the Local Health District. She contributes her clinical expertise as a GP to the BREATHE SMART project.

• Cailin Maas

  Cailin Maas is the research manager in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care in the School of Medicine. Her interdisciplinary work uses systems thinking to translate evidence-based practice into improvements in healthcare delivery, with a focus on underserved populations. In particular, she is interested in how prevention, clinical decision-making, and socio-cultural and economic factors intersect to shape outcomes. A mixed-methods researcher, Cailin integrates qualitative, quantitative, and geo-spatial approaches to address complex health system challenges. She collaborates with people with lived experience, clinicians, and policymakers, to evaluate and scale models of care that are responsive, effective, and equitable.

• Lucian Keiran

  Lucian has a background in Medical Genetics and a strong interest in applying both qualitative and quantitative methods to improve healthcare outcomes. He is currently the Senior Research Assistant on the BREATHE SMART project, supporting trial design, ethics submissions and compliance with ICH-GCP guidelines. His role includes reporting, stakeholder engagement and contributing to research outputs, while ensuring grant obligations are met.

• Anushka Jacob

  Anushka Jacob is a Project Officer on the BREATHEFAST project and SYNERGY projects. She has a background in paramedic science and clinical research, with a strong interest in preventive medicine, aiming to focus on improving patient outcomes by contributing to innovative programs that improve experience and access to healthcare. Her role includes coordinating day-to-day project activities, supporting research planning and implementation, maintaining project documentation and data, and assisting with ethics, reporting and stakeholder engagement. She is passionate about working collaboratively with researchers and external partners to ensure the effective delivery of the team’s research portfolio and supporting the achievement of project objectives.

• Lola Hatherley

  Lola has a background in biomedical science and clinical research, with a keen interest in applying research to enhance healthcare practices and outcomes. She works as a Research Assistant on the BREATHE SMART project, supporting daytoday study operations with a focus on data management and entry. She also assists with ethics and governance documentation and supports stakeholder communication, ensuring adherence to research guidelines.

• Phyu Khin

  Phyu Khin is a medical graduate from Myanmar with a Master of Health Informatics. She currently works as a Research Support Officer on the Respicheck project, where she collaborates with stakeholders on participant recruitment, develops educational materials for pharmacists and supports the development of a pharmacy-based application. Her work also includes data transcription and analysis using NVivo, survey preparation via REDCap and contributions to ethics applications and literature reviews.

• Niamh Dove

  Dr Niamh Dove is a graduate from the MD program at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. She is currently undertaking her GP academic training under the supervision of Prof Charlotte Hespe. She combines clinical training with academic work, contributing to primary-care research and medical education. Her interests include evidence-based practice and improving the translation of research into everyday general practice.

Resources for GP supervisors

We are committed to knowledge translation and dissemination. Explore more tools, publications and updates.

• UNDA GP Orientation Manual
• Type 2 diabetes teaching plan
• Cardiovascular disease teaching plan
• Preventative health teaching plan
• Respiratory illness teaching plan
• Mental health teaching plan

Get involved

We welcome the involvement of General Practitioners (GP), primary care professionals and students with an interest in academic general practice and collaborative research.

For GPs, we offer the chance to contribute to ongoing studies, co-develop new lines of inquiry grounded in clinical practice and participate in knowledge translation activities that inform and enhance primary care delivery. We also support GPs interested in pursuing research training or higher degree research pathways.

Students and early-career researchers are encouraged to explore opportunities for placements, mentorship and collaboration across our research programmes. Our aim is to build a connected community of clinicians and academics working together to advance evidence-based, practice-informed care.

Contact us

If you are interested in contributing to General Practice and Primary Care Research please get in touch with Professor Charlotte Hespe.