3. Patient Safety

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinator: Don Campbell
Project aim: This project will identify organisational preconditions for effective root cause analysis and organisational factors that determine how clinical audit and subsequent RCA can improve quality of care.
Project description: States are currently required to collect data on nine sentinel events. Root Cause Analysis is used to determine how systems can be redesigned. Despite being intuitively a good idea, its effectiveness has not been well tested.
Project status:This project is in concept/development phase.
Contact: TBA

Title: Clinical Pathways

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinator: Caroline Brand
Project aim: This project will build on substantial information already gathered to identify factors which impact on integration of clinical pathways into practice. Researchers will identify tools to be developed to increase clinician engagement and therefore improve likelihood that guidelines will be implemented and used reliably.
Project status: This project is in concept/development phase.
Contact: Caroline Brand

Title: Warfarin complications in the community

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinator: John McNeil
Project aim: This project will improve the care management of patients receiving warfarin in the community
PhD student: Basia Diug
Project description: Anticoagulants have been shown to be a significant patient safety concern. Intracerebral bleeds and strokes are catastrophic consequences of over or under treatment. We will compare patients who develop a high INR during the course of warfarin therapy with a matched control group who’s INRs have remained in the normal range. Variables include personal, social and organisational factors that may predispose patients to such an event.
Project status: This project is in the implementation phase.
Contact: Judy Lowthian

Title: Determining health risks in older persons from extreme hot weather

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinators: Prof Joe Ibrahim and Ms Judy McInnes
Project aim: This Department of Human Services funded project aims to identify:
(1) awareness of health professionals and carers of risks to the vulnerable elderly population in extreme weather conditions;
(2) knowledge of medical, behavioural and environmental risk factors;
(3) identify available resources that identify health risks and suitable adaptation strategies.
Project description: A literature review, site visit and field consultation will be undertaken. Victorian data on relationship between temperature and morbidity/mortality in those aged 65 years and over will be reviewed. A survey of GPs and carers will be delivered to describe current knowledge and identify key knowledge gaps.

Project status: This project is in the implementaion phase.
Contact: Judy McInnes

Title: Management of venous ulcers

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinators: Prof John McNeil
Project aim: The aim of this projects is to develop a set of best practice guidelines for health providers treating patients with chronic venous ulcers.
Project description: We will collect data from the wound clinic at Austin Health, the wound clinic at Caulfield ( Alfred) as well as the wound clinic at Melbourne Extended Care. These outpatient clinics would provide the opportunity to investigate patients diagnosed with venous disease both retrospectively and prospectivly.
Project status: This project is in the design phase.
Contact: Carolina Weller

Title: Improving management of patients suffering iscahaemic stroke

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinator: TBA
Project aim: The aim of this project is to identify delays in treatment of patients suffering ischaemic stroke through analysis of current practice by paramedics and in emergency departments in rural and metropolitan locations.
Project description: A number of process and outcome quality indicators will be assessed as possible tools to measure effectiveness and timeliness of performance in regard to stroke management.
Project status: This project is in the deisgn phase.
Contact: Ben Clissold

Title: Investigating the social construction of quality indicators in the ED

Principal research category: Patient Safety
Project Coordinators : Peter Cameron
Project aim: The primary aim of this project is to enhance communications within the trauma system.
Project description: This qualitative study will consist of a series of mono-professional focus groups in order to elicit the perceptions of frontline staff toward the utility and relevance of quality indicators, and specifically aims to uncover reasons behind non-compliance. It will support existing CRE-PS work, that is revealing counter-intuitive results regarding process measure and patient outcomes. Suggestions for refinement of emergency department-based quality indicators will result.
Project status: This project is in the concept phase.
Contact: Shelly Jefcott