Mathematical Decision Support to Optimise Hospital Capacity and Utilisation. Hospital planners and executives regularly contend with challenging capacity related decisions. Decisions relating to prioritisation, allocation and sharing of resources have a profound impact on productivity, efficiency and patient outcomes. There is a lack of data-driven or quantitative decision support to make well-informed capacity related decisions of a strategic or tactical nature in a single hospital, or across a ....Mathematical Decision Support to Optimise Hospital Capacity and Utilisation. Hospital planners and executives regularly contend with challenging capacity related decisions. Decisions relating to prioritisation, allocation and sharing of resources have a profound impact on productivity, efficiency and patient outcomes. There is a lack of data-driven or quantitative decision support to make well-informed capacity related decisions of a strategic or tactical nature in a single hospital, or across a regional healthcare system. This project aims to deliver decision support for holistic hospital capacity assessment and planning optimisation. This will yield significant benefits for the health sector, providing a tool to optimise the allocation of resources and provision of infrastructure for regional hospital services.Read moreRead less
An integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise hospital operations. This project aims to develop an integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise patient scheduling systems of different departments to ensure that the hospital’s assets and related resources are used efficiently. The project’s aim is to investigate patient flow, process delay, and the interaction and inter-dependence of departments within the hospital to reduce access block (bottleneck) and subseque ....An integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise hospital operations. This project aims to develop an integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise patient scheduling systems of different departments to ensure that the hospital’s assets and related resources are used efficiently. The project’s aim is to investigate patient flow, process delay, and the interaction and inter-dependence of departments within the hospital to reduce access block (bottleneck) and subsequent overcrowding. This project aims to smooth the running of the hospital, improve the efficiency of patient throughput, reduce waiting times, and revolutionise hospital planning and scheduling.Read moreRead less
Managing knowledge in telehealth projects: creating better solutions and improving patient care. Telehealth is the use of information and communication technologies for the delivery of healthcare and medical education across a distance. This project will propose more effective ways to support telehealth initiatives by managing the knowledge and expertise that is an integral part of such projects, resulting in improved outcomes.
Borderline Personality as Social Phenomena. Mental disorders attract social stigma and those diagnosed are widely misunderstood. This project aims to collect and analyse accounts of people living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) - mainly women - and perspectives of social support practitioners. The intended outcome is to provide a sophisticated understanding of BPD as a social phenomenon, develop sociological evidence based on lived experiences and generate Australian digital resources ....Borderline Personality as Social Phenomena. Mental disorders attract social stigma and those diagnosed are widely misunderstood. This project aims to collect and analyse accounts of people living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) - mainly women - and perspectives of social support practitioners. The intended outcome is to provide a sophisticated understanding of BPD as a social phenomenon, develop sociological evidence based on lived experiences and generate Australian digital resources including narratives of BPD, creative outputs and practitioner perspectives. The anticipated goal of this project is to inform policy and community responses addressing stigma and marginalisation, and the improvement of social support for those affected by BPD.Read moreRead less
Designing Robust Reactive Scheduling System for Emergency Medical Services. The job shop approach to reactive scheduling system for Emergency Departments promises considerable benefits over existing approaches, and allows problems of large size and complexity to be solved with great accuracy. The application of research results in Australia has the potential to:
- provide benchmarks in ED scheduling;
- reduce patients waiting times and rejections by better planning of patient schedules of em ....Designing Robust Reactive Scheduling System for Emergency Medical Services. The job shop approach to reactive scheduling system for Emergency Departments promises considerable benefits over existing approaches, and allows problems of large size and complexity to be solved with great accuracy. The application of research results in Australia has the potential to:
- provide benchmarks in ED scheduling;
- reduce patients waiting times and rejections by better planning of patient schedules of emergency departments;
- leads to less costs for staff and resources;
- enhance the ability of managers to control operations in an efficient manner and minimise conflicts; and
- to increase efficiency of emergency departments, leading to lower operating and capital cost.
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Improving the measurement and surveillance of child abuse in Queensland. Estimates of the prevalence of child abuse suggest 10-20% of children are affected, with financial costs to the community around $5 billion annually, and extensive health and social consequences. Despite these enormous costs, research into risk factors and prevalence of child abuse has been hampered by poorly validated statistics. The use of routine hospital data for the identification of child abuse cases offers an effici ....Improving the measurement and surveillance of child abuse in Queensland. Estimates of the prevalence of child abuse suggest 10-20% of children are affected, with financial costs to the community around $5 billion annually, and extensive health and social consequences. Despite these enormous costs, research into risk factors and prevalence of child abuse has been hampered by poorly validated statistics. The use of routine hospital data for the identification of child abuse cases offers an efficient nationally standardised data source to improve the precision of child protection departmental responses through routine monitoring and audits of linked health and child protection data. Improvement of data will inform identification, intervention and prevention strategies.Read moreRead less
From data to action: a new process for developing injury countermeasures. This project aims to understand how reporting systems can improve workplace safety. Workplace injury affects over 600 000 Australian workers per year at a cost of approximately $60 billion. Although the introduction of incident reporting systems has enabled organisations to better understand the causes of injuries, how to translate this knowledge into effective countermeasures remains ambiguous. Moreover, it is not clear w ....From data to action: a new process for developing injury countermeasures. This project aims to understand how reporting systems can improve workplace safety. Workplace injury affects over 600 000 Australian workers per year at a cost of approximately $60 billion. Although the introduction of incident reporting systems has enabled organisations to better understand the causes of injuries, how to translate this knowledge into effective countermeasures remains ambiguous. Moreover, it is not clear whether adopting incident reporting systems actually leads to a safety benefit. This research intends to tackle these critical knowledge gaps by developing, implementing, and testing a process for translating incident reporting system outputs into appropriate and effective injury countermeasures, and then evaluating the safety effects of adopting the new incident reporting and learning cycle.Read moreRead less
Promoting youth wellbeing through participatory digital media: A multidisciplinary assessment of the mental health outcomes of cyber-participation. This innovative, multidisciplinary research addresses the urgent issue of youth mental health, and aims to investigate the impact of digital media participation on improving youth wellbeing. Key national benefits of this research are: the significant potential to contribute to the larger conception, prevention and promotion of youth mental health in ....Promoting youth wellbeing through participatory digital media: A multidisciplinary assessment of the mental health outcomes of cyber-participation. This innovative, multidisciplinary research addresses the urgent issue of youth mental health, and aims to investigate the impact of digital media participation on improving youth wellbeing. Key national benefits of this research are: the significant potential to contribute to the larger conception, prevention and promotion of youth mental health in Australia; evaluation of, and subsequent evidenced-based innovations, of POs' digital media programs to increase level of support for youth; and the training provided to emerging researchers in the project team.Read moreRead less
Customer Co-production in Ongoing Health Service Delivery: A Longitudinal Study. Customers do not merely receive services. Increasingly they are actively involved in their design and delivery even to the extent of being regarded as 'part-time employees'. Customer co-production is tipped to be the next frontier in competitive effectiveness. Benefits to customers,however, are largely unknown. Often customers fail in their co-production role with serious negative consequences. Given the important r ....Customer Co-production in Ongoing Health Service Delivery: A Longitudinal Study. Customers do not merely receive services. Increasingly they are actively involved in their design and delivery even to the extent of being regarded as 'part-time employees'. Customer co-production is tipped to be the next frontier in competitive effectiveness. Benefits to customers,however, are largely unknown. Often customers fail in their co-production role with serious negative consequences. Given the important role of customers (patients) in ongoing health care, and the potential for failure, it is critical that customer co-production be fully investigated. If performed well co-production should result in positive patient outcomes and significant cost savings for the healthcare sector.
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Identifying, attracting and retaining successful foster parents. This research project will improve Australian foster care systems. By developing tools to identify, attract and retain successful foster parents more effectively we will address two critical problems facing foster care organisations: decreasing numbers of foster parents and increasing numbers of 'placement breakdowns'. Improvements of these factors will (1) give foster children a more positive and healthier start to life; (2) reduc ....Identifying, attracting and retaining successful foster parents. This research project will improve Australian foster care systems. By developing tools to identify, attract and retain successful foster parents more effectively we will address two critical problems facing foster care organisations: decreasing numbers of foster parents and increasing numbers of 'placement breakdowns'. Improvements of these factors will (1) give foster children a more positive and healthier start to life; (2) reduce the extent to which foster children develop antisocial and emotional attachment problems; (3) reduce the incidence of criminal and antisocial behaviours among foster children; and consequently (4) have a positive long-term effect on the social fabric of Australia.Read moreRead less