Professional Issues and Acute Care
Lead: Dr Ashley Kable
The position of Professor of Acute Care is currently vacant; however, there is substantial research activity in this area. Researchers are involved in studies that are focused on making a difference in the delivery of health services and for health professionals in the clinical environment, often using a multidisciplinary approach. We have well-developed relationships with Public Health researchers in the Faculty of Health and Hunter New England Health. These relationships provide the basis for development of innovative projects expected to commence in 2008.
Expertise in this area includes quantitative and qualitative methodology, intervention studies, patient and workforce surveys, and focus groups and expert panels for the purpose of validating study instruments. Research topics have included:
- Adverse events in surgical admissions
- Using statistical modeling to identify predictors for adverse events
- Patient surveys of post discharge complications and delivery of health services
- Patient and health care worker safety
- Designing/conducting/evaluating interventions to reduce adverse events in health care
Many of our researchers have extensive clinical backgrounds in Acute Care including Intensive Care, Perioperative, Medical and Surgical nursing.
Dr Deborah Sundin has researched the decision-making processes around initiation and withdrawal of treatment in critical care and their impact upon the decision-makers.
Dr Sundin's PhD work explored these issues from the perspectives of families, nurses and doctors in diverse critical care venues in Queensland and NSW. In 2008, she will be working with clinicians in Hunter New England Health to evaluate recommendations that arose from her doctoral research. Additional projects are being planned to extend the research activities focused on acute care in 2008.
Current projects
Current projects include a study in partnership with researchers in the School of Health Sciences and the NSW Nurses' Association: The Needlestick and Sharps Injuries Survey of NSW Nurses. This study is funded by a Workcover NSW Assist Applied Research Grant. The survey of 7,500 nurses in NSW, is about sharps related injury and follow up of these incidents in the workplace.
Research is currently being conducted by Dr Tracy Levett-Jones that explores how belongingness influences students' experiences of learning, engagement, sense of purpose and academic and professional success. Mixed method, multi site, cross national studies that focus on the relationship between belonging, coping, stress, anxiety and depression in undergraduate students are planned as well as cross cultural studies of belongingness and depression in students studying at Thai universities.
Studies investigating the information and communication technology skills of undergraduate nursing students and registered nurses are commencing in 2008.
Honours and research higher degree students in this area may be directly involved in these projects or in related areas.
