Mr Downie, who has been acting CEO at IHPA for over a year, has successfully overseen the delivery the National Efficient Price and National Efficient Cost for 2016-17 as well as the completion of Australia’s first classification system for mental health care services.
“The Pricing Authority is pleased to appoint Mr Downie as Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority,” said Mr Solomon.
“He has played a vital role in the establishment of a national system of Activity Based Funding for public hospital services. Under his leadership IHPA has continued to develop the National Efficient Price as an independent benchmarking tool used widely to measure the efficiency of public hospital services and to assist states and territories with funding decisions as well as being used to determine the amount of Commonwealth funding provided to public hospitals.
“The Council of Australian Governments’ renewed support for Activity Based Funding will bring some new and exciting challenges to IHPA and its Work Program for 2016-17. Mr Downie’s strong technical and leadership skills will ensure the successful delivery of this program by IHPA,” he said.
Mr Downie was previously IHPA’s Executive Director, Activity Based Funding where he led the teams responsible for delivering the classification, costing and pricing functions of IHPA as well as the data acquisition activities.
Prior to his role at IHPA, Mr Downie was the Manager, Funding Systems Development in the Victorian Department of Health. In this position he was responsible for Victoria’s existing funding models, and the national ABF developments.
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