Staff

Professor Bill Runciman

Bill is President of APSF. In 1988, together with APSF colleagues, he conceptualised and implemented AIMS in the form of a nation-wide paper-based anaesthesia incident monitoring project. Bill founded the APSF in 1988, since then he has provided leadership and made fundamental contributions to patient safety and quality research both in Australia and internationally. Bill was concurrently the Foundation Professor of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the University of Adelaide and Head of Department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital from 1988 to 2007. He was a member of the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care and of the Australian Health Information Council. He has been President of the Australian Patient Safety Foundation since its inception in 1988. In 2007, Bill was appointed as a Professorial Research Fellow in Patient Safety at the University of Adelaide, Joanna Briggs Research Institute and Royal Adelaide Hospital. He also holds appointments as an Adjunct Professor, Human Factors in Healthcare, at the University of South Australia and a Visiting Professor – Change Management, to the Centre for Clinical Governance Research in Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales. Bill was a co-author of the landmark Quality in Australian Health Care Study published in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) in 1995, one of the top 10 cited studies published in the MJA. Bill has been involved in the publication of about 200 scientific papers and chapters and has given 500 lectures by invitation. In 2007, he published the patient safety textbook: Runciman B, Merry A, Walton M, 'Safety and Ethics in Healthcare: a Guide to Getting It Right', Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007. RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT (November 2007): Bill has been awarded the Pugh Award of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists in recognition of outstanding contribution to the science of anaesthesia, intensive care or related disciplines.

Dr Klee Benveniste

Klee is a Research Fellow at APSF. She has a Ph.D. in injury epidemiology from Flinders University School of Medicine and has been employed in a variety of medical research support positions over 30 years. Previous positions include the Department of Community Medicine at the University of Adelaide/Royal Adelaide Hospital, the Department of Primary Care and Community Medicine at the Flinders University of South Australia, Southern Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, and on her own grants at Flinders Medical Centre where she was also a practising psychologist. Klee has extensive experience in literature review, data analysis, report preparation and publication of research in the field of public health. Klee joined the APSF in 2001 as a postdoctoral Research Officer.

Dr Tim Schultz

Tim is Technical Director and responsible for the day-to-day management of the APSF. He has a research background in comparative physiology and has recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Public Health (University of Adelaide) and works part-time as a Research Fellow at the Joanna Briggs Institute. He has experience in conducting and developing methods for systematic reviews, evaluation of health services and patient safety initiatives and translating research evidence into practice. Tim is responsible for ensuring the security of the national aggregated patient safety databases stored at the APSF, and co-ordinates database searches, interpretation and analysis of patient safety incidents. Current projects include evaluation of TeamSTEPPS for the South Australian Department of Health, management of the Radiology Adverse Events Register for the Quality Use of Diagnostic Imaging Program, and Collaborations for Translating Research into Practice. Tim commenced at the APSF in May 2008.