October 4, 2019
Eight reasons to attend Research Week 2019
Research Week at Northern Health annually showcases a range of local and innovative research projects and presentations from research leaders around the world.
This year, Research Week will be held from 7 to 11 October with presentations at Northern Centre for Health Education & Research (NCHER), Northern Hospital Lecture Theatre and the Conference Room at Percy Cleland Ward, Bundoora Centre.
“We are privileged to have an exciting range of speakers at this year’s Research Week,” says Professor Peter Brooks AM, Northern Health Research Lead.
“They will force us to reflect upon our current practices and challenge us to explore how we can rise above the increasing demands we will continue to face.”
We have highlighted below, eight ‘must see’ events, starting with our guest speaker at the Grand Opening, Professor Helena Teede.
- Professor Helena Teede holds leadership roles across health care, research and policy including Executive Director Monash Partners Academic Health Research Translation Centre and Director Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation. Professor Teede is passionate about research and evidence translation into health care to improve health outcomes. Helena’s presentation titled, ‘Creating a learning health system to meet clinical and community needs: it’s everyone’s job,’ will make the case that as it’s the community that are the funders and beneficiaries of health care and research, they need to play a core role in priority setting, design and delivery of research and translation – if it is to deliver health impact to Australia.
- Next up is the Ideas Lab, an exciting innovation sponsored by our Chief Executive that gives our staff the opportunity to contribute towards developing solutions to challenges we face every day in our health system.The theme of the Ideas Lab during Research Week is, ‘How do we ensure that research underpins everything we do at Northern?’ We look forward to your attendance and contribution to this exciting event.
- Nursing skill mix refers to the number, type and educational preparation of nurses. There are a number of studies that have demonstrated a clear association between nursing skill mix and patient outcomes. Professor Richard Gray, Professor of Clinical Nursing Practice and Director of the Alfred Clinical School at La Trobe University, will discuss the methodological limitations to many of these studies and how they may be overcome.
- Dr Adam Semciw is considered an international expert on the hip, and hip pain. He is ranked number 12 in the world and second in Australia for research on gluteals and ranked seventh in Australia for research on the hip joint. Adam will discuss factors associated with research interest, confidence and experience among allied health clinicians, and how this knowledge can be used to develop strategies to foster research engagement among clinician researchers.
- Speaking at our Grand Round is Professor Rachelle Buchbinder, Australian NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow, Rheumatologist and Clinical Epidemiologist. Her current program of work concerns reducing inappropriate or low value care and improving the sustainability of the health system. Most recently she contributed to The Lancet Low Back Pain Series, a call to action to address the rising global burden of low back pain partly attributable to poor quality health care. Rachelle will make the case that unnecessary health care including overtesting, overdiagnosis and overtreatment is a growing problem. She is of the view that not only does it harm people, but it diverts scarce resources from those that need it most and may be the most important contributor to health care waste in Australia and the world.
- Closer at home, Mark Tacey, Northern Health Biostatistician, will conduct a workshop on Sample size and power estimation: where do I start? Prior to moving into the health industry, Mark worked as a statistician and senior research analyst within the traffic and transport industry. Mark has expertise in providing advice in relation to study design, sample size estimation and the appropriate collection of study data, and can provide assistance or advice relating to statistical analysis using a range of statistical analysis software.
- MedTech Actuator is Australia’s premier medtech commercialisation initiative developing state-based innovation ecosystems. They activate ideas from clinicians, researchers, staff and students through industry-led specialised entrepreneurship education and training programs. They will conduct a master class on Ideation Session/Entrepreneur in Residence & Mentoring.
- There’s also the Great Debate on the subject ‘Is meat evil? Should everyone have a vegetarian diet?’
Moderated by Professor Hamish Ewing, it promises to be fierce, funny – and factually questionable.
Rounding off the program of events are the poster and oral presentations. To quote Professor Brooks, the presentations “highlight the quality of research activities occurring across the clinical spectrum being driven by an increasing number of staff at Northern Health.”
