News and Events
What's new?
- Exceptional opportunities in Biomedical Research - NHMRC, 1 Dec 2011
- Exercise supports brain repair for stroke victims
- Sansom Institute and RFDS join forces to boost remote health services
- Visiting researcher puts QI's under the spotlight
- Meet our Research Fellows
- New expertise in health and use of time, lung physiology, drugs of dependence
- Sansom researcher on the big screen
- Funding to tackle Indigenous diabetes and cardiovascular epidemic
May 2011
Quality indicators: are we on the right track?
Around the world, quality indicators in health – that is, data comparing
everything from mortality rates in different hospitals to the efficacy of
prescribing practices – are becoming increasingly accessible to everyone
from patients to policy makers and insurers.
While greater transparency and accountability in health care seem worthy
enough goals, the question of whether quality indicators actually help
achieve this – and, ultimately whether they result in better health outcomes
– was raised by visiting researcher Professor Flora Haaijer-Ruskamp at a
recent Sansom Institute Seminar.
A professor in Drug Utilization Studies at the University of Groningen,
Haaijer-Ruskamp visited UniSA as a special guest of the Institute’s Quality
Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre (QUMPRC).
Discussing numerous international examples highlighting some of the benefits
– and unintended consequences – of the use of quality indicators, Prof
Haaijer-Ruskamp argued for ongoing critical scrutiny to ensure that QIs
actually support better health outcomes.
Citing a major US study from 2010, she said that while the impact of
publicly-available data comparing hospitals found that greater scrutiny did
help lift some standards in low-performing areas, that one of the unintended
consequences of public reporting was health care providers refusing to care
for high risk patients.
Meanwhile a recent UK study cited by Prof Haaijer-Ruskamp found that while a
pay-for-performance scheme resulted in improvements in two out of three
chronic conditions examined, such improvements may have come at the expense
of other areas where quality of care had actually decreased.
“There’s a high investment in using these new quality indicators, but
limited evidence surrounding their effect on patient outcomes,”
Haaijer-Ruskamp said.
“However, there is a lot of evidence for educational PI’s [performance
indicators] working, so I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the
bathwater.”
Professor Haaijer-Ruskamp made the point that policy makers and researchers
should be aware of the limitations of QIs and work to refine them so that
they take into account elements that are currently missing, such as patient
preferences, or complex patients with multi-morbidity.
April 2011
New expertise welcomed
In line with our mission to support research with a
purpose linked to better health outcomes, the Sansom Institute has welcomed
a host of established research talent to the fold.
Researchers that have recently joined the Institute are
engaged in an exciting range of cutting edge studies looking at areas
ranging from opioids to lung physiology and health and use of time.
The
Health and Use of Time concentration brings to the Sansom a diverse
group of scientists to look at how factors such as physical activity, sleep
and screen time affect our physical, mental and social health.
Joining the Institute as part of the Therapeutics and
Pharmaceutical Science concentration, the
Drugs of Dependence
research group conducts trials examining the effects of a wide range of
drugs, particularly opioids, stimulants and drugs that work on the central
nervous system.
Meanwhile, the
Molecular and Evolutionary Physiology of the Lung Laboratory is working
towards achieving a wide range of important health care goals, from better
care for premature babies and their mothers, to improved treatments for
respiratory disease, and preventing the spread of infectious diseases such
as avian flu.
Watch this space:
new pages coming soon on nursing, midwifery and mental health.
March 2011
Sansom researcher Dr Craig
Williams on the big screen
The Sansom’s resident mosquito expert, Dr Craig
Williams, is one of a select group of academics to be featured in a new
initiative highlighting the personalities and passions of some of UniSA’s
research and teaching staff.
As part of the
Learn from Experience initiative, short films featuring Craig and five
other UniSA academics were screened as part of the recent BigPond Adelaide
Film Festival.
Watch the film here.
The twelve short films and associated materials will be
featured in a variety of cinema, TV, print and web-based formats throughout
the year.
Craig, who talks in the film about his inspiration as a
teacher and researcher, says he was honoured to be part of the initiative.
“I was surprised and humbled to be asked, especially
seeing as there are so many people – people who are extremely interesting
and do really important work – who could have been featured,” he says.
February 2010
UniSA wins funding to tackle Indigenous diabetes and
cardiovascular epidemic
The National Health and Medical Research Council has awarded researchers at
UniSA a prestigious Program Grant to support research into the causes,
appropriate interventions and health system changes that will help reduce
the incidence and adverse health impacts of diabetes and cardiovascular
disease in Indigenous populations.
Lead investigator and Director of UniSA’s Sansom Institute for Health
Research, Professor Kerin O’Dea and her UniSA colleagues Professors Robyn
McDermott, John Lynch, and Leonie Segal, with Kevin Rowley from the
University of Melbourne have been awarded more than $8 million over five
years.
Full story