Kellie Le, Early Supported Discharge (ESD) Coordinator, Vascular Surgery and Senior Podiatrist at Northern Health, is one of 10 clinicians across the state selected for the 2024 MacHSR Future Leaders Fellowship program.

The program is open for fully qualified clinicians (doctors, nurses and allied health professionals) who are keen to use Health Services Research to explore an evidence-based solution to a practical healthcare problem that is pertinent to their health service.

Kellie was selected for the program for her project: ‘An Evaluation of the Victorian Virtual Specialist Consults (VVSC) at Northern Health.’

“I had a rollercoaster of emotions when I received the news I was selected,” Kellie said.

“It is such a great opportunity and I am very grateful to have been successful with my application for the fellowship, along with the support that I received from the VVSC team.”

The VVSC is an evolution of the Medical Community Virtual Consult model that launched at Northern Health at the beginning of 2023, and was designed in response to the current difficulties with access to specialist clinics, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The VVSC provides virtual consults to patients with substantial barriers to specialist access across the state and co-consults to support GPs and other healthcare professionals with immediate answers to help manage complex patients in the community.

In doing so, it aims to reduce demand on hospital outpatient services and avoid presentations and admissions to hospital through earlier optimisation of care.

“Robust evaluation is absolutely critical to understand the impact any new service has on patient experience and outcomes,” says Dr Joanna Lawrence, Director of VVSC.

“Kellie’s research, supported by experts in Health Services Research, will hopefully showcase the value VVSC is adding to the healthcare system and help guide future development.”

The fellowship offers Kellie the opportunity to enrol into Introduction to Health Services subject training, have protected research time, mentoring and cohort networking.

“It’s a program which supports health service research in partnership with hospitals to facilitate the development of evidence-based solutions to practical healthcare problems,” Kellie said.

“I am most excited about being able to learn how to complete research, especially in a structed environment with a supportive team.”

“Being a clinician, we are often pulled in lots of different directions, and having dedicated time to complete research is very compelling to me. Learning how to robustly evaluate VVSC will give me the background knowledge and empower me with the skills to eventually evaluate my own service under ESD Vascular.”

The goal of the ESD Vascular program is to reduce Length of Stay (LOS) by 20 percent in the vascular patient cohort, for those patients that are recruited and are eligible for ESD. This program offers virtual monitoring and support for patients at home, whilst they wait for their elective procedures with Vascular Surgery.

It also enables patients to safely remain at home, or encourage escalations to hospital if their health or condition deteriorates.

“I am hoping that once I have grasped the skills to evaluate a service, I can apply them to the current service program that I am working on or assist others within the health service,” said Kellie.

Northern Health congratulates Kellie on her success, and wishes her the best as she embarks on this journey.