About Us | CARE Network

Partners & Collaborators

Collaborating centres now include over 50 hospitals and clinical services throughout Australia and globally.

Key partners include NSW Health, the Black Dog Institute, Ramsay Healthcare, the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation, and the Singapore Institute for Mental Health.

Funding Sources

The CARE network was launched in 2015 with seed funding from the NSW Mental Health Commission.

Since 2021, CARE has been funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation.

We seek to improve clinical care by:

1) Supporting Best Clinical Practice

Providing hospitals and clinical services with a common set of clinical and cognitive measures to use with patients receiving neurostimulation and other interventional treatments. These measures are carefully selected to meet data collection standards recommended or required by state health guidelines throughout Australia (e.g., NSW Health ECT Standards).

2) Benchmarking and Quality Assurance

Collating standardised data sets from each participating service and comparing results for the purposes of clinical auditing, benchmarking, quality assurance and improvement. Participating services receive confidential feedback, allowing them to compare their service with others.

3) Research

Using collated data from across the network to examine how different treatment practices influence outcomes, what works for different patients, and how cost-effective these treatments are. The recommendations arising from this research can be used to improve and refine treatment guidelines.

CARE is led by Professor Colleen Loo and Dr Donel Martin from UNSW Sydney.

Professor Colleen Loo

Prof Colleen Loo

Colleen is an internationally recognised clinical expert and researcher in the fields of neurostimulation and interventional psychiatry. She has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and led the first Australian RCTs of ECT, TMS, tDCS and ketamine for depression.

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Dr Donel Martin

Donel is a Senior Clinical Neuropsychologist and academic researcher. He leads the Neurocognition research stream of the Sydney Neurostimulation Centre, investigating the use of novel brain stimulation techniques for enhancement of cognitive function in psychiatric disorders.

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Ana Rita Barreiros

Rita leads the coordination of the CARE Network, as well as clinical trials in interventional psychiatry and neurostimulation, as a Project Manager at UNSW/Black Dog Institute. She has strong credentials and a varied career in clinical and academic psychology and neuroscience research in three continents and three languages.

Dr Clara Massaneda Tuneu

Clara is a psychiatrist, researcher, and member of the CARE Network Coordination Team. She is also involved in clinical trials in neurostimulation as a study psychiatrist and is currently undertaking a PhD on the topic of ECT and cognition, supervised by Prof Colleen Loo and Dr Donel Martin.

Vanessa Dong

Vanessa is a research officer and has been working with the CARE Network Coordination Team since 2017. She has a background in psychology and public health, including experience in clinical research involving novel treatments for depression.

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Vinh Cao

Vinh is a research assistant who supports CARE Network activities as part of the central coordinating team. Prior to joining Prof. Colleen Loo’s team, he graduated with a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) from the University of Sydney and has diverse experience in research supporting projects spanning mental health, neuropsychology, and dementia.