Research Portfolio

Understanding end-of-life care for older people presenting to the ED

People aged ≥65 years are over-represented in the emergency department (ED) population and some, often with serious chronic disease, present in the last moment of their life. For many reasons the ED can be a challenging place to provide EoL care. The overarching aim of this study was to estimate the magnitude of the need for care at the end of life (EoL) for older people in the ED, and to describe care delivery practices, processes and outcomes for older people who present to the ED requiring EoL care. To address this aim, two phases were developed.

Principal Investigator: Dr Nemat Alsaba
Amount Awarded: $88,357
Institution: Gold Coast University Hospital

Reaction of Emergency Services uPON Disasters in Queensland

From a health perspective, a disaster overwhelms the normal operating capacity of a health service, where an outside health response is required to restore and maintain the normal day-to-day health services and standards of care for the disaster-affected community. The Australian healthcare system is tested annually with disasters of a conventional nature (e.g., floods, cyclones, bushfires), however, the Australian healthcare system has not been recently tested by non-conventional disasters such as Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and explosive (CBRNe) disasters. As a result, the ability to determine the healthcare system response is difficult. Further, there is no research specific to the…

Principal Investigator: Ms Sarah Weber
Amount Awarded: $62,959
Institution: Princess Alexandra Hospital

uSing Meditation App to Reduce ED occupational sTress (SMART) trial

Our study aims to test whether a mindfulness program delivered by a smartphone app can reduce occupational stress levels among Emergency Department (ED) staff. This study will recruit staff at two regional EDs. Staff will practice short session mindfulness daily, for four weeks, using a smartphone meditation app. The study will determine if, by using the app, staff levels of occupational stress are reduced and overall wellness increased. The levels of stress reduction will be compared before and after the intervention. Working in an ED can be stressful. It has been suggested that up to half ED doctors and nurses…

Principal Investigator: Ms Hui (Grace) Xu
Amount Awarded: $13,650
Institution: Logan Hospital

Improving blood culture collections in the emergency department

The primary aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of an intervention designed to improve the quality of blood cultures collected in a busy emergency department. Blood cultures are tests that are frequently ordered by emergency doctors to detect and identify bacteria present in the blood of patients who are unwell. The test requires a sample of blood to be collected from the patient. Like many tests, the quality of the results is related to the quality of the sample collection process. Several factors may influence the quality of sample collection and increase the chance of sample contamination.…

Principal Investigator: Dr Julian Williams
Amount Awarded: $81,614
Institution: Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital

Valuing patients’ experience in the emergency department

Improving patient experiences is part of Queensland’s 2016-2020 Strategic Plan to enable safe, quality healthcare services. Yet, current emergency department(ED) patient experience measures, including the burdensome 82-item Queensland Health (QH) ED patient experience survey, fail to reflect patient preferences for care experiences, inhibiting the design and evaluation of healthcare services that reflect patient preferences, and the delivery of value-based healthcare. The aim of this project is to develop an ED patient experience classification system and accompanying scoring algorithm that can be used to both measure and value patient experiences in Queensland EDs. It will provide a proof of concept for…

Principal Investigator: Dr David Spain
Amount Awarded: $75,757
Institution: Gold Coast University Hospital