Professor Craig Whitehead is an active geriatrician and clinician manager. He has been the Regional Clinical Director of Rehabilitation, Aged and Palliative care in the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network since 2009. He was appointed to be a member of Aged Care Advisory Group, Australian Health Protection Principal committee (AHPPC) to advise on the Commonwealth response to Covid 19 in residential aged care in 2020. He was a member of the Ministers Clinical Advisory Group (MCAG) in 2016 to guide the development of models of care for Transforming Health, particularly in the areas of residential aged care. He was also part of the research group that established the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) which has produced multiple publications and provided key advice to the Royal Commission into Aged Care. 

Professor Whitehead’s research is driven by improving service delivery and clinical practice, and he has led research developing, implementing, and evaluating alternative models of care for responding to the complex care needs of vulnerable older people. In conjunction with SA Ambulance and consumers, Professor Whitehead led the development and pilot of an alternative model of care providing urgent, in-home, and restorative care for older people requiring non-emergency care to reduce pressure on hospitals. He was CIA on an MRFF grant to evaluate these services and enable implementation at scale. This project found that a specialised geriatric urgent care pathway was a feasible and safe alternative to ED, highlighting Professor Whitehead’s expertise in developing novel models of care for older people. Professor Whitehead was a CI on three recent translational projects: working with clinicians across SA (primary care, aged care, and hospitals) to reduce hospital readmission of older patients; establishing a community of practice to improve outcomes for people with dementia; and a project which successfully implemented dementia care guideline recommendations through establishment of a quality improvement collaborative.