Improving cancer care through collaboration: meet Justin Chai

Justin Chai is the Strate­gic Lead for Col­lab­o­ra­tive Health Sys­tems at the CEIH, help­ing bring peo­ple and ideas togeth­er to improve how our health sys­tem works. 

Right now, he’s focused on answer­ing a big ques­tion for South Aus­tralia: ​‘how good is our can­cer care?’ 

1. What is your role and what are you work­ing on currently?

I’m the Strate­gic Lead – Col­lab­o­ra­tive Health Sys­tems in the Part­ner­ships team at the CEIH. My role is all about help­ing the Com­mis­sion act as a cat­a­lyst — bring­ing togeth­er peo­ple across the health sys­tem (and beyond) to work more col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly and achieve bet­ter out­comes together.

Cur­rent­ly I’m lead­ing the Opti­mal Care Path­ways (OCPs) Clin­i­cal Qual­i­ty Indi­ca­tor project, a key ini­tia­tive of the South Aus­tralian Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Net­work (SAC­CaN). The aim is sim­ple but ambi­tious: to be able to con­fi­dent­ly answer the ques­tion, ​“How good is can­cer care in South Aus­tralia?” – and back it up with mean­ing­ful data that high­lights what’s work­ing well and where tar­get­ed improve­ments are need­ed to ensure equi­table, high-qual­i­ty can­cer care for all South Australians.

2. What drew you to work­ing at the CEIH and what keeps you motivated?

I was drawn to the CEIH by the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make last­ing, sys­tem-lev­el change in a health sys­tem that – like many – has grap­pled with frag­men­ta­tion and com­plex­i­ty. What keeps me moti­vat­ed is the Commission’s will­ing­ness to inno­vate, embrace a fail-fast cul­ture, and stay relent­less­ly focused on equi­table access to high-qual­i­ty health­care. It’s a place where big ideas are encour­aged and mean­ing­ful impact is possible.

3. What’s one project or achieve­ment you’re proud of?

One project I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of focused on improv­ing equi­table access to robot­ic-assist­ed surgery (RAS) in South Australia’s pub­lic health sys­tem. It involved bring­ing togeth­er clin­i­cians, peri­op­er­a­tive lead­ers and sys­tem stake­hold­ers to share exper­tise, data and per­spec­tives. The out­come was a report that informed future invest­ment deci­sions – which will result in addi­tion­al RAS sys­tems being deployed in pub­lic hos­pi­tals through SAC­CaN fund­ing, so more patients can ben­e­fit from time­ly, clin­i­cal­ly appro­pri­ate robot­ic-assist­ed sur­gi­cal care.

4. What’s one book, pod­cast, or resource that’s influ­enced your think­ing lately? 

‘Super­com­mu­ni­ca­tors: How to Unlock the Secret Lan­guage of Con­nec­tion’ by Charles Duhigg. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing explo­ration of how struc­tured, inten­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion can help peo­ple tru­ly hear one anoth­er – even across deeply oppos­ing views. One stand­out exam­ple involved gun-rights and gun-con­trol advo­cates learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with­out hos­til­i­ty, show­ing that when peo­ple feel gen­uine­ly heard, trib­al­ism starts to dissolve.

5. If you could solve one prob­lem in your field (or the world), what would it be?

Improv­ing how clin­i­cians com­mu­ni­cate – clear­ly, effec­tive­ly and empa­thet­i­cal­ly – with patients, par­tic­u­lar­ly those from cul­tur­al­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly diverse back­grounds. Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a clin­i­cian and more recent­ly as a care­giv­er to a can­cer sur­vivor, I’ve seen first­hand how big the gap can be between what we think we’ve com­mu­ni­cat­ed and what’s actu­al­ly been understood.

6. How do you recharge? What helps you main­tain your own wellbeing?

Qual­i­ty time with my wife and chil­dren, bush hikes and being out in nature, good music and films, pas­sion­ate­ly sup­port­ing Arse­nal, stay­ing con­nect­ed through my local church and con­tribut­ing back to the Ade­laide com­mu­ni­ty. Those are the things that keep me ground­ed and energised!