Dr Bavahuna Manoharan

Dr Bav Manoharan is a medical practitioner in Queensland and currently works as the Deputy Executive Director of Medical Services at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service and leads the Clinical Governance Service which includes Patient Safety & Quality Improvement, Clinical Compliance & Clinical Data Analytics as well as providing medical leadership for health infrastructure expansion planning in the region. 

Bav also leads the Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) Program at the Gold Coast following his role as the Queensland State Clinical Lead for VAD Implementation in 2022, where he assisted in the development of an ICT system to enable the clinically safe, legislatively compliant and clinician friendly service delivery. He currently serves on the inaugural statutory Queensland VAD Review Board as well. 

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Bav was the State Clinical Director for the Covid-19 Vaccination Program in Queensland Health with oversight over the clinical aspects of the rollout and the Queensland Adverse Event Following Immunisation safety Surveillance Program. He clinically led the design, deployment and refinement of the Queensland Covid-19 Vaccine Management System (QCVMS), which was the first statewide consumer clinical application which allowed session bookings, clinical data & vaccination episode collection, vaccine stock monitoring and management, adverse event capture and utilization of APIs to automate clinical data flow to the TGA and Services Australia. He was a spokesperson for the AMA during this time and appeared in media to speak on Covid-19 matters frequently. He was awarded the 2021 University of Queensland Distinguished Young Alumni Award for his leadership in the medical field as Queensland responded to the COVID-19 crisis.

He was previously the Deputy Director of Medical Services and Director of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Logan Hospital and held similar medical administration roles in Toowoomba. He has completed a Master of Public Health, is a Certified Health Informatician of Australia (CHIA) and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).

In 2021, Bav was appointed to the TGA’s Advisory Committee on Medicines which provides independent medical and scientific advice to the Commonwealth Minister for Health and the TGA on issues relating to the safety, quality and efficacy of medicines supplied in Australia. In Queensland, he is a member of the Statewide Medicines Expert Advisory Group.

Within the medical community, Bav holds a number of key leadership roles including as Director of the National Australian Medical Association (8 years) and over a decade in various roles including Vice-president, CEO and Director of the Queensland Branch. He is also a doctor Tribunal member on the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) and as a medicolegal as advisor to MDA National. 

Bav’s work with the Australian Digital Health Agency started in 2019 and included the Clinical Governance Committee, Agency Assurance Committee and contributions to the Agency Covid-19 Response, development of Digital Health Capability Frameworks for Medicine& Nursing, the 2020 innovation challenge and ongoing Modernization of Digital Imaging (MoDI) program.