Organisational management, clinical governance, health informatics
Name: Jarron Schaeffer
Research areas of interest: Computer Assisted Knowledge Discovery in Bioinformatics
Name: Sally Nathan
Contact Details: s.nathan@unsw.edu.au,
Research areas of interest: Community and clinician participation in healthcare governance, the role of legislation in healthcare governance and, clincial ethics
Current research topic:
Consumer participation: Positioning, discourse and influence in health-care decision-making
Sally’s PhD is part of a wider ARC Linkage study examining the relationship between health service accreditation and clinical and organisational performance. Sally’s PhD will specifically examine the dynamics of the interaction between health professionals and consumer representatives in health care decision-making forums in a sample of health services participating in the larger study. The proposed study will break new ground by examining consumer participation in ‘real time’, rather than through the examination of case studies retrospectively, allowing a window into the dynamics of the interaction between health professionals and consumer representatives. Very little research has addressed the role of consumer representatives in health care decision making forums or attempted to directly observe how and in what ways consumer participation influences health care policy and practice. The aims of the study will be met via a case study design using ethnography as a method to understand how consumer representatives participate at the selected health services and endeavour to represent and advocate the interests of the broader community.
Supervisors: Associate Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Dr Niamh Stephenson
Name: Judie Lancaster
Contact Details: z3042878@student.unsw.edu.au,
Research areas of interest: ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT, CLINICAL GOVERNANCE, HEALTH INFORMATICS
Current research topic: Beyond Accreditation: surveyor influence on quality improvement initiatives and accreditation preparations in their regular workplace.
This research is a part of the Australian Research Council Linkage Project between the Centre and Industry Partners. The project is an ethnographic study of surveyors at work in their usual professional roles at the hospitals in which they are based. This study is one of two that will explore the organisational influence of accreditation surveyors and one of four studies that constitute the larger. The research comprises a series of case studies of surveyors at work in their usual professional role. A preliminary premise is that surveyors acquire from their active roles as ACHS assessors a broad understanding of quality improvement issues and a degree of expertise at implementation.
The study will explore the influence these surveyors exert on the processes involved in preparation for accreditation as well as their influence on the organisation’s process for quality improvement. It will seek to discover the extent to which the knowledge and skills acquired by each surveyor are utilised for the benefit of the organisation.
The research is being carried out at three hospitals by way of a series of in-depth interviews.
Supervisors: Professor Jeffery Braithwaite, Dr. David Greenfield
Name: Eilean Watson
Contact Details: z9490046@student.unsw.edu.au, Ph: +61 (2) 9385 1009
Research areas of interest: CURRICULUM MAPPING, EDUCATION AND ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, KNOWLEDGE CULTURE, SOCIO-TECHNICAL APPROACH TO INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) EVALUATION
Current research topic: To investigate the use of eMed Map, a curriculum mapping tool designed, developed and maintained by the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW for its Medicine 3802 program. The study aims to understand how the Map is used by teaching and administrative staff in on-campus schools and in clinical schools, the barriers to mapping, and how use of the Map could be improved in future. It will attempt to identify the organisational and social changes required to make curriculum mapping a success for staff and ultimately for students.
Supervisors: Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Professor Patrick McNeil, Dr Lesley Land
Name: Robyn Clay-Williams
Contact Details: r.clay-williams@student.unsw.edu.au
Research Areas of Interest: Teamwork training, interdisciplinary teams, error management in health care
Current Research Topic: Multidisciplinary Teamwork in Public Health – an evaluation of attitude and behavioural changes resulting from a Crew Resource Management (CRM) Intervention. Although strong teamwork skills appear intuitively to be important in reducing error and achieving high quality clinical and organizational performance in Public Health, few studies have been undertaken to prove this hypothesis. Robyn’s PhD will investigate the efficacy of aviation-style CRM training in improving public health safety, by evaluating attitude and behavioural changes in multi-disciplinary teams resulting from implementation of a CRM intervention in the Australian health care field.
Supervisors: Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Dr. Ross Kerridge