October 2011
Four members from the Flinders Centre for Clinical Change and Health Care Research were successful in being awarded an NHMRC Project Grant for 2012:
- Professor Derek Chew: Do new markers of heart muscle damage lead to more efficient or effective clinical management of patients with chest pain presenting for emergency care? ($496,904)
- Professor Maria Crotty: Hip fracture recovery in an aged care setting ($522,039)
- Professor Julie Ratcliffe: Adolescent values for the economic evaluation of adolescent health care treatment and preventive programs ($174,312)
- Associate Professor Peter Catcheside: The clinical effectiveness of a simple new treatment for supine-dependent obstructive sleep apnoea ($512,776)
“OSA is a condition which has significant adverse effects on health and quality of life, and has major community costs associated with accidents and productivity losses from severely disturbed sleep,” Associate Professor Catcheside said.
“A third of OSA patients and many heavy snorers could be effectively treated by simply avoiding sleeping on their back. However, traditional supine-avoidance approaches are inherently uncomfortable and typically not well tolerated and so can’t be recommended as long-term therapy,” he said.
“Our group helped develop and has tested a simple vibration alarm device to monitor and record sleep posture and discourage supine sleep with minimum discomfort and sleep disturbance.”
“In a short term trial we have already shown the device accurately and reliably records body position, almost completely abolishes the supine posture and substantially improves OSA.
“This trial will look at longer-term effectiveness and tolerance. If our hypotheses are supported, simple low cost supine avoidance would become a viable treatment option for a substantial group of clinic patients.”
September 6, 2011
TRAINING SESSION
Friday, 21st October 2011, 1.30pm - 4.30pm
'The Walkway' meeting room, Level 6, Flinders Private Hospital
"Health Economics," the happy science not the dismal science.
A half-day interactive training session on Health Economics led by Professor Julie Ratcliffe.
Find out why health economics is not as boring as you might first think!
An introductory session which will take you through the main principles of health economics and economic evaluation. Topics covered will include the main types of economic evaluation, the measurement and valuation of resource use, estimation of quality adjusted life years, economic evaluation case study and critical appraisal of a published economic evaluation.
By the end of this training session you will have:
1. A thorough understanding of why health economics is not all about costs.
2. An awareness of the four main types of economic evaluation and their respective advantages and disadvantages both in theory and practice.
3. Essential knowledge for building an economic evaluation framework into clinical studies and grant applications.
4. A working knowledge of the criteria utilized to judge a high quality economic evaluation and the ability to apply the criteria in critically appraising published studies.
Julie Ratcliffe was appointed Professor of Health Economics within Flinders Clinical Effectiveness in the School of Medicine at Flinders University in August 2010. She has been a chief investigator on 25 research grants, and has published 78 papers in peer reviewed journals, including the British Medical Journal, Health Economics, and Social Science and Medicine. Previous to her current appointment, Julie held academic positions within the School of Health and Related Research at Sheffield University, the Health Economics Research Group at Brunel University and the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen. Julie's current research interests include the measurement and valuation of health outcomes for economic evaluation and the methodology and application of discrete choice experiments for the quantification of patient and general population preferences for health and health care treatments and services.
August 16, 2011
Congratulations to Tanja Effing, Peter Frith and their colleagues in the Netherlands on their success in the peer reviewed Dutch Asthma Foundation grant round.
Their grant application, "The effects of self-treatment on duration of exacerbations, health status and costs of health care in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and common comorbidities," was ranked as number one on the list of studies to be funded and is for 250,000 Euros over three years.
The Chief Investigators are Job van der Palen (Netherlands), Tanja Effing, Paul van der Valk (Netherlands), and Peter Frith.
June 6, 2011
Flinders Centre for Clinical Change & Health Care Research congratulates Professor Julie Ratcliffe and fellow Chief Investigators, Prof. Mary Luszcz, Prof. Maria Crotty, Prof. Jan Paterson, Prof. Len Gray and Prof. Ian Cameron on their success in the ARC Linkage Projects for Round 2 for funding commencing in July 2011.
Their project will develop a health economic model through the investigation of Consumer Directed Care (CDC) and is being conducted in collaboration with the Aged Care and Housing Group, Catholic Community Services, HammondCare and Helping Hand Aged Care Inc.
This three year project aims to determine the attitudes and preferences of older people, their informal carers and staff engaged in the provision of aged care within Australia for a CDC approach to community aged care service delivery.
May 17, 2011
SA Health, in conjunction with industry partners celebrated The 11th Annual Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards on Friday 6th May 2011. The awards recognised nurses and midwives for their excellence in practice and acknowledgement for their significant contribution to their professions, their teams and the community through their practice.
Congratulations to Professor Eimear Muir-Cochrane, Research, Flinders University of South Australia, who was one of the recipients to receive the 2011 Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards. Eimear is a registered nurse/midwife with a focus on mental health nursing and is a current member of the Flinders Centre for Clinical Change and Health Care Research.
The Nursing & Midwifery Excellence Awards function was held in conjunction with the celebrations of International Midwives Day (5 May) and International Nurses Day (12 May).
For a full list of recipients and further information: http://www.nursingsa.com/office_awards.php
March 17, 2011
Members of the Centre for Clinical Change and Health Care Research are invited to attend the final PhD presentation of fellow member and CareSearch Director, Jennifer Tieman, on
Friday, 29th April at 4.00pm in Rooms 103 & 105, new Health Sciences Building, Repatriation General Hospital.
Investigating barriers to accessing online health information
Health information for community members and health professionals is now readily available on the web. However, specific barriers relating to the nature of the web environment as well as to the characteristics and circumstances of intended and actual users can affect whether this information is found and used. The complex, and changing, information needs of the palliative care community highlight many of these issues. This final PhD seminar describes a set of research studies assessing issues relating to user factors, physical accessibility, "findability" and readability, and their implications for health consumers, health professionals and the health system.
Light refreshments from 3.45pm
RSVP Kathryn.Thompson@health.sa.gov.au
February 23, 2011
The Executive Committee of Flinders Centre for Clinical Change and Health Care Research (FCCCHCR) agreed to fund competitive scholarships of $10,000 per year for three years as a top-up for new PhD students awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship in 2011. Applicants were accepted from a range of disciplines, reflecting the broad nature of the membership of this Centre, with a research focus on one or more of the three key areas of research focus and performance.
The successful applicants were Dr Carolyn Petersons and Mr Anthony Villani.
Dr Peterson's PhD involves research into the metabolic and cardiovascular effects of long-term low dose glucocorticoid use in the setting of two common chronic clinical conditions - inflammatory rheumatologic disease and hypopituitarism.
Mr Villani has completed an Honours Degree of Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics (First Class) and was awarded the University Medal in Health Sciences, Flinders University. His major field of study is Nutritional Rehabilitation. He is currently employed as a Research Dietician in an NHMRC funded trial in the area of Nutritional Rehabilitation in aged care, for participants post hip fracture surgery.
December 11, 2011
Flinders Centre for Clinical Change and Health Care Research welcomes Professor Julie Ratcliffe as Chair of Health Economics. Julie has established a strong track record in health economics research. She has been a chief investigator on 17 research grants totalling over $6.3 million. She has 70 papers in peer reviewed journals, including some of the most prestigious international health journals such as the British Medical Journal, Health Economics, and Social Science and Medicine, and has co-authored 18 commissioned reports and 11 briefing papers, working papers and discussion papers.
Professor Ratcliffe has served as Professor in Health Economics within Flinders Clinical Effectiveness, Flinders University, since August 2010 after a successful career in Health Economics in the UK.
For more information about Professor Julie Ratcliffe, please see her profile page.
