Maria Inacio

Maria Inacio is a Research Professor at Flinders University's College of Nursing and Health Sciences and serves as the Director of the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) at SAHMRI and Flinders' Caring Futures Institute. She holds a NHMRC Emerging Leadership 2 Fellow and has trained at the Dartmouth Centre for Evaluative Clinical Sciences (MS 2002) and University of California, San Diego (PhD 2013). Her career includes 11 years at Kaiser Permanente developing orthopaedic registries before returning to Australia to establish ROSA.

Research Focus: Population health surveillance systems, registry science, and health services research in aged care. She specializes in leveraging existing data to monitor quality/safety in aged care, reducing unwarranted care variations, and improving surgical outcomes. Her work has informed federal policy reforms, including contributions to Australia's Royal Commission on Aged Care.

Article Trends: Recent publications emphasize

• geriatric orthopaedic outcomes
• data linkage methodologies
• UV disinfection in infection control
• mental health-surgery intersections
• economic evaluations of rehabilitation programs
• frailty intervention strategies

Scientific Recognition:

• Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Most Cited Scientist (2022)
• Hospital Research Foundation Mid-Career Fellow (2020-2023)
• Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science Mentee (2019-2023)
• National and international awards including SA Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2020) and US Orthopaedics Research Foundation Clinical Research Award (2018)

Leadership: Principal investigator for NHMRC/MRFF grants, editor of Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, and former Deputy Medical Editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. She co-leads the ROSA team, which has delivered critical reports to federal health agencies.