The Western Australian Record Linkage Project: Population-Based Studies Of Health System Utilisation And Outcomes
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$975,923.00
Summary
Through the unique combination of the WA Record Linkage Project and research expertise applied consistently over a 5 year period, the project will provide information on the health system's performance, which is difficult to obtain in any other way. Five priority themes will be developed: (1) INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH CARE, in particular a better understanding of the effects of social disadvantage, lack of private health cover and living in rural and remote areas on health care access and outcomes. ....Through the unique combination of the WA Record Linkage Project and research expertise applied consistently over a 5 year period, the project will provide information on the health system's performance, which is difficult to obtain in any other way. Five priority themes will be developed: (1) INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH CARE, in particular a better understanding of the effects of social disadvantage, lack of private health cover and living in rural and remote areas on health care access and outcomes. (2) PREVENTABLE INPATIENT TIME through research into the causes of preventable inpatient time and the role of the hospital and general practice in reducing these risks. (3) PROMOTING BEST PRACTICE IN SURGICAL and PROCEDURAL CARE through systematic evaluation of the appropriateness and outcomes of surgical procedures. (4) CLINICAL SAFETY AND POST-IMPLEMENTATION SURVEILLANCE to ensure the safety of new technology. Finally, (5) METHODOLOGIC DEVELOPMENTS to provide better methods of record linkage to evaluate the health system. The project is consistent with priorities set in the National Health Information Development Plan in record linkage and health outcomes, as well as the monitoring of interventions recommended by the Taskforce on Quality in Australian Health Care, and the national agenda given to the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care. The work will examine health system access and outcomes for five of the six focus areas chosen by the Australian health ministers. Moreover, the results will be used to advocate on behalf of vulnerable populations in a country that prides itself on universal access to high quality health services. In view of the relevance of the project to existing priorities, and the unique opportunities afforded by the WA Record Linkage Project, a substantial, beneficial impact on health policy and practice is anticipated, as well as new research methods and findings that will contribute to international knowledge.Read moreRead less
Crossmodal Interactions In Selective Attention: A Combined Human Lesion/transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$188,182.00
Summary
Aspects of attention are of central importance in guiding human behaviour. The brain uses these mechanisms to enhance the processing of sensory information that is currently relevant for behaviour, and to suppress irrelevant sensory information. Although there is a considerable body of knowledge, from both animal and human research, on how attention operates within individual sensory modalities (vision, touch, hearing, etc.), very little is known about how attention integrates information across ....Aspects of attention are of central importance in guiding human behaviour. The brain uses these mechanisms to enhance the processing of sensory information that is currently relevant for behaviour, and to suppress irrelevant sensory information. Although there is a considerable body of knowledge, from both animal and human research, on how attention operates within individual sensory modalities (vision, touch, hearing, etc.), very little is known about how attention integrates information across these different modalities. An understanding of these 'crossmodal' attentional mechanisms is important for several reasons. First, much brain activity in primary sensory areas is modulated by the attentive state of the individual, so discovering how crossmodal attention works will facilitate our understanding of the neural mechanisms of sensory processing generally. Second, the most basic aspects of human perception are fundamentally dependent upon attention; without attention we would perceive inputs from the different senses as fragmentary, rather than as bound together into coherent multimodal representations. Finally, many acquired and developmental neurological disorders are characterised by debilitating impairments of attention. This project will examine crossmodal spatial attention in stroke patients with damage to an exclusively visual brain area (occipital cortex), or to a multisensory brain area (parietal cortex). It will also measure the extent of crossmodal interactions in healthy participants, using cortical transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to induce reversible, 'virtual' lesions that mimic those of the stroke patients. The specific goals of the research are to explain how inputs from the senses of vision and touch interact to give rise to coherent perception; and to provide an empirical foundation for the development of more effective rehabilitative techniques for stroke patients, by exploiting any preserved crossmodal attentional mechanisms.Read moreRead less