Macquarie University’s New Health Research Secures $8 Million in Grants
The projects will focus on transforming paediatric healthcare through translational research, an effectiveness trial for a treatment for chronic back pain, and improving the quality of healthcare received by people with intellectual disability.
Macquarie University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Sakkie Pretorius, congratulated the teams on receiving such significant support for their work.
“These are projects that have the potential to make a tremendous difference to the care received by some of the most vulnerable members of our community and improve the quality of life for a large number of people who live with chronic pain,” Professor Pretorius says.
“They are three excellent examples of the type of collaborative, multi-disciplinary health projects that Macquarie University does so well.
“Fostering research like this is of particular importance to us, as it allows us to bring the latest evidence-based treatments not only to our patients at Macquarie University Hospital and Clinics, but to improve healthcare for people Australia-wide.”
A project led by Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) Founding Director, Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, will receive $4,981,095 over five years.
The National Paediatric Applied Research Translation Initiative (N-PARTI) is an initiative to use implementation science and rapid applied translation techniques in three national paediatric priority areas – asthma, type 1 diabetes and antibiotic overuse – to transform levels of evidence-based care provided to Australian children.
The project will involve working with many national and international stakeholders including patients and their families, clinicians, researchers, key state and national bodies, and international colleagues. The program of work will be divided into three phases of activities: evidence validation, field-testing, and embedding, scale-up and evaluation.
The investigator team includes 15 researchers from AIHI, Perth Children’s Hospital Telethon Kids Institute, Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, University of NSW, and MQ Health.
Partner organisations include Asthma Australia, Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network (PHN), North Coast PHN, Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, South-Western Sydney PNH, Western NSW PHN, WA Primary Health Alliance, Western Queensland PHN, and Western Victoria PHN.
Professor Mark Hancock of the Department of Health Sciences is leading a project titled, ‘Implementation and effectiveness of cognitive functional therapy (CFT): A hybrid implementation effectiveness trial’.
Funded under the MRFF Clinician Researchers Initiative – 2023 Clinician Researchers: Applied Research in Health Grant, the project will receive $1,441,979 over four years.
CFT is a biopsychosocial treatment that uses intensive, personalised sessions with specially trained physiotherapists to help people develop a positive mindset, learn to move in ways that ease their pain, and make lifestyle changes.
This latest study builds on a previous trial published in The Lancet that showed CFT to be effective in providing lasting improvement in function and pain relief for people with chronic back pain.
The latest investigation will include a further clinical trial and will assess the treatment’s effectiveness and cost-effectiveness when delivered in routine practice and compared to standard physiotherapy care. The trial will also investigate the feasibility of delivering CFT in routine clinical practice and the efficacy of the clinician training program.
The investigator team includes researchers and clinicians from Macquarie University and MQ Health, and researchers from Curtin University, Monash University, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and the University of Western Australia.
A project led by Professor Reema Harrison from AIHI will receive $996,820 to address the quality of healthcare received by people with intellectual disability.
Titled, ‘Pioneering co-created patient-reported experience measures for people with intellectual disability to improve health outcomes’, it will run for three years.
Improving healthcare quality requires an understanding of consumer experiences of their care, but the surveys currently used to gather patient experiences are not suitable for most people with intellectual disability.
This ground-breaking project is a collaboration between consumers, researchers, system and service partners that will create patient-reported experience measures with and for this population and use them to improve hospital care nationally.
The investigator team includes researchers from Macquarie University, University of NSW, University of Sydney, Monash University, Deakin University, and Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (SCHN).
Partner organisations include Sydney Local Health District, Northern Health, SCHN, Monash Health, Bureau of Health Information, Agency for Clinical Innovation, St Vincent’s Health Australia, and NSW Health.