tracy is the professor of midwifery at the university of sydney and the royal hospital for women, sydney and a conjoint professor, university of new south wales, sydney. she is based at the midwifery and women's health research unit at the royal hospital for women, randwick, sydney. her research projects include the safety of primary level (especially rural) maternity hospitals and birth centres in australia and the evaluation of midwifery led units. she was currently the chief investigator on a large multicentre randomised controlled trial of caseload midwifery care, funded by a project grant from the national health and medical research council of australia. the findings from this research demonstrated that caseload midwifery is cheaper and safer that fragmented care.