Research Theme 1 tackles important questions in informatics and healthcare including using big data to improve care, diagnostic testing, and medication management, as well as designing analytics to guide better healthcare decisions. Researchers are also examining how telehealth might best be deployed and funded to improve healthcare across the country.
This Research Stream seeks to uncover how shared health information can improve appropriate, effective, and cost effective medication management while also reducing errors and adverse drug events in acute, community, and aged care settings. In addition, the Research Stream looks at how shared health information can have positive effects on medication ordering processes, follow-up of diagnostic tests, and consumer engagement.
Analytics underpins every aspect of sustainability strategies that require data to monitor systems and detect critical events or at-risk patients. The development of analytic-based tools, open source software, and best-practice implementation models that are context sensitive is critical to achieving sustainable health services and systems. This Research Stream seeks to determine how effective predictive analytics is in identifying and managing high-risk chronic disease patients and understand the impact of analytics on quality and efficiency of health services and hospital performance (e.g., for feedback or benchmarking).
The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed telehealth services in Australia. Even before the pandemic, this Research Stream was examining the use of telehealth to improve access, reduce costs, and improve outcomes, with a focus on online interactions using images, data, text, and real-time interaction to inform clinical decision making and the management of chronic disease. It continues to address the service models that can best exploit the evolving, increasingly low-cost infrastructure of telehealth and how primary care can be re-engineered through telehealth to improve accessibility, reduce cost, and increase patient engagement and self-management.
Westbrook J, Li L, Raban M, Woods A, Koyama AK, Baysari M, Day R, McCullagh C, Prgomet M, Mumford V, Dalla-Pozza L, Gazarian M, Gates P, Lichtner V, Barclay P, Gardo A, Wiggins M, White L. 2020. BMJ Quality & Safety.
Snoswell CL, Taylor ML, Comans TA, Smith AC, Gray L, Caffery L. 2020. Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Kocaballi AB, Ijaz K, Laranjo L, Quiroz J, Rezazadegan D, Tong HL, Willcock S, Berkovsky S, Coiera E. 2020. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Smith AC, Thomas E, Snoswell CL, Haydon H, Mehrotra A, Clemensen J, Caffery L. 2020. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare.
