Dr. Ya-Seng(Arthur) Hsueh

Dr Arthur Hsueh, a senior lecturer, has joined the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Melbourne since 2007. He holds Bachelor’s degree in public health from National Taiwan University, and two Master’s degrees (in hospital management and applied economics respectively) and a PhD specialised in health economics from the University of Michigan. Previously, he had been an academic at National Taiwan University, as well as played a leadership role at the health sector in Taiwan for two decades. For example, Dr Hsueh chaired the taskforce and reformed the hospital accreditation standards and system for tertiary medical centres and teaching hospitals. His extensive research in evaluating health care quality, cost and utilisation has resulted in health policy changes in patient safety, national health insurance, and quality of health care. All these policy changes have been implemented by the Ministry of Health. At the University of Melbourne, Dr Hsueh teaches both introductory and advanced courses of ‘Health Economics’ and ‘Economic Evaluation’. He also teaches ‘Public Health Leadership and Management’, a required course for all Master’s students in public health.

Dr Hsueh’s recent research interest has been focusing on develop costing and cost-effectiveness modelling to conduct economic evaluation for any health initiative, intervention, program and policy in Australia. In the past eight years, Dr Hsueh has conducted and published economic evaluation research on a wide range of health initiatives, e.g., closing the gap for eye care and vision of Indigenous Australians; community pharmacists’ involvement in cardiovascular disease management; early physical intervention on spinal cord injured patients; after hours GP helpline services; ‘one-on-one’ intervention versus ‘usual care’ in relation to maternal care for low-risk pregnant women in Geelong etc. In addition to economic evaluation research, Dr Hsueh is also interested in using health economics frameworks to study the relationship between aging and health. He has conducted a series of longitudinal studies on health and aging using longitudinal panel survey data of the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia).

Currently, Dr Hsueh is involved in six funded research projects, conducting economic evaluation of health interventions for patients of diverse medical conditions. Topics include: cost-effectiveness of early rehabilitation for intensive care unit patients, active physical exercises for spinal cord injury, population-based screening of chlamydia infection for pregnant women, and remote monitoring using communication device for haematological cancer respectively., Dr Hsueh has also conducted economic evaluation for carers of chronic conditions, as well as mental health of carers of stroke, renal dialysis and diabetes patients