Adam G Elshaug

Adam Elshaug (born 1974) is an Australian academic professor and Chair in Health Policy at the University of Melbourne. His research includes health system safety and efficiency, with a focus on measuring and reducing waste and low-value care for optimisation of value in healthcare delivery.

Career In 2010, Elshaug was selected as the Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Elshaug returned to Australia in 2013 and became the Head of the Value in Health Care Division (Lab) and Associate Professor of Healthcare Policy, and was awarded the HCF Research Foundation Principal Research Fellowship, at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney. In 2016, he was appointed Professor and became co-director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the University of Sydney.

In 2019-20, Elshaug was a Visiting Fellow at the Economics Studies’ Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC. His applied policy approach involves collaborating with policy stakeholders to develop and implement reforms aimed at reducing waste and enhancing safety and value in healthcare.

Elshaug has been actively engaged in advocacy for reducing low-value care appearing before the Australian Senate Select Committee on Health and participated in various media outlets, which addressed low-value health care in Australia.

Awards and honours In 2020, Elshaug received the Health Services Research Association of Australia & New Zealand (HSRAANZ)’s Health Services and Policy Research Impact Award, recognising notable contributions to health services research and policy application in Australia. In 2022, Elshaug was a finalist in the Health Services Research Award category at Research Australia’s Health and Medical Research Awards.