Embedding researchers into industry settings offers a powerful mechanism for generating practice-relevant evidence, building workforce capability, and informing policy. This presentation describes the development and application of the PECO toolkit (Practitioner, Environment, Consumer flow, Organisation) to guide the systematic integration of researchers into primary healthcare organisations.
Using Health Hub Morayfield, a large, privately funded primary care precinct serving >250,000 consumers in a low-SES outer-metropolitan region of Australia, as a case study, the authors outline a six-step implementation framework. 1. identifying suitable industry partners, 2. joining clinical teams, 3. defining embedded roles, 4. applying a multi-level systems lens, 5. anchoring research activities to organisational paradigms, and 6. aligning initiatives using a tool. In this case, the PECO domains.
Over four years (2022–2026), small seed projects evolved into a sustainable research platform. Industry outcomes included internal research capacity and evidence-informed service redesign, supporting the national scaling of the urgent-care model to 135 centres across Australia. University outputs comprised 15 peer-reviewed publications, multiple non-traditional research outputs, HDR completions, and leveraged funding.
Policy impact was demonstrated through contributions to national urgent-care policy, hospital-avoidance metrics, and recognition of the model as an evidence-informed health system reform exemplar. The PECO toolkit enabled alignment across clinical operations, research governance, and consumer pathways while preserving organisational culture and scope of practice.
The presentation concludes that structured researcher embedment, supported by relational trust-building and multi-level systems thinking, can simultaneously advance industry innovation, academic impact, and evidence-based policy translation in primary care.