This project will examine if providing additional therapy services on a Saturday reduces health care costs, and improves the health of hospital inpatients receiving rehabilitation compared to the usual Monday to Friday service. Preliminary information suggests additional Saturday rehabilitation services could reduce length of stay by 3 days without compromising discharge outcomes. If successful this trial will have substantial health and economic benefits for the patients and for organizations.
Ambulance demand is increasing internationally and has been associated with poorer patient outcomes. Although little is known about the drivers of demand, ambulance services are implementing revised telephone triage models to divert critical resources away from patients with non-urgent complaints. This research aims to evaluate ambulance demand, as well as the safety and effectiveness of revising telephone triage and ambulance dispatch models.
Personality disorders are serious psychiatric disorders. Despite this, the prevalence of these disorders in the Australian community is largely unknown, as is their influence on physical and other mental health conditions and impact on Australia’s medical and mental health care services. This epidemiological study will answer these questions, with the aim of informing public health planning and service delivery practices and prompting future health economic research in this area.
A Geographic Approach To Measuring Social Deprivation And Health Care Need For Primary Health Care Policy And Planning
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$148,213.00
Summary
Understanding how and where people use and access health services, and how social disadvantage affects this is important for planning and providing primary health care services. Presenting information as maps is an effective way to explore and communicate these issues. This research program will use a geographic and map-based approach to understanding patterns of health service use and social disadvantage, to assist in developing primary health care policy.
Evaluating A Program For Developing Specialist Cancer Nurse Competencies For Effective And Sustainable Self-management Of Dyspnoea In Lung Cancer Patients.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$123,143.00
Summary
Breathlessness is a common, distressing symptom of lung cancer and adds substantially to the disease burden. This study aims to develop and evaluate a specialist cancer nurse competencies program to support patients in breathlessness self-management strategies. This study will assume a key role in instituting person-centred models of integrated cancer service delivery in adding to the limited knowledge about what skills and abilities are required of nurses to support patient self-management.???
Assessing And Optimising Anti-Cancer Drug Utilisation
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$128,224.00
Summary
Cancer is increasingly common in Australia and often treated with expensive drugs tested in idealised settings within clinical trials. It is vital to collect real world data about how cancer treatments are used in Australia. This research will use routinely collected health care data to determine how anti-cancer drugs are used in the real world, how effective they are in treating cancer, and identify areas for improvement to promote effe ctive, appropriate and equitable use of anti-cancer drugs.
Feasibility Of Using Pre-hospital Point-of-care Troponin And Paramedic Risk Assessment In Patients With Chest Pain Without ST-elevation
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$132,743.00
Summary
Non-traumatic chest pain is the leading cause of ambulance services use in Victoria. Currently, there is no protocol for paramedics to determine which patients are high risk and suffering a minor heart attack, which results in delays in treatment. The aim of this project is to assess the feasibility of a risk assessment tool, including the use of point-of-care blood testing to detect heart attacks, to accurately risk stratify chest pain patients in the pre-hospital setting.
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is fatal without immediate resuscitation. Paramedic competency in resuscitation has been shown to influence cardiac arrest survival. Through my doctoral research I aim to investigate: how paramedic exposure to cardiac arrest can influence patient survival; the practices emergency medical services currently use to develop and maintain paramedic competency in resuscitation; and the confidence and perceived competency of paramedics responding to cardiac arrests.
Supporting Knowledge Translation In Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Primary Health Care: A Developmental Evaluation Of A Stakeholder Engagement Process To Support Use Of Evidence In Systems And Policy Change
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$66,784.00
Summary
The research uses a developmental evaluation approach and mixed methods to evaluate a dissemination activity that engages stakeholders in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care in using aggregated quality improvement data to identify and address evidence-to-practice gaps in healthcare. Evaluation processes are being used to refine dissemination processes and materials. Findings will also offer insights about using developmental evaluation approaches in knowledge translation.
Increasing The Efficacy Of Web-based Physical Activity Interventions: Improving Website Promotion And Participant Engagement
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$62,073.00
Summary
This project aims to test innovative ways to improve web-based physical activity interventions able to reach large numbers of Australians at low-cost. In particular the effectiveness of internet promotion, personally tailored advice in video format and a brief Skype counseling session will be tested. Findings will inform the next generation of interventions that have the ability to improve physical activity levels in a large number of Australians and reduce the prevalence of disease.