Research

Lead researcher: Professor Janet Kelly

This unique and respectful program brings together Aboriginal community members and health consumers with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health professionals, researchers and community leaders. We identify gaps in care, and co-design innovative strategies to improve health care approaches, experiences, wellbeing and outcomes. Our projects involve urban, rural and remote health care setting across South Australia, nationally and internationally.

Professor Janet Kelly leads the Improving Aboriginal health care research program and has co-developed a range of Aboriginal patient journey and health journey mapping tools for quality improvement, cultural safety, education and training. Dr Kelly also co-leads the AKction: Aboriginal Kidney Care Together- Improving Outcomes Now project with Dr Kim O’Donnell and a team of Aboriginal patient experts (Aboriginal people with lived experience of kidney disease), and kidney care and research experts. This project has four nested sub-studies: Indigenous governance, kidney journey mapping, peer support, and cultural safety. Emerging projects are focusing on Indigenous student recruitment and retention and embedding cultural safety into health care training and education. An increasing number of health professionals and students are working collaboratively on projects within this program.

Key research topics/project areas:

• Increasing cultural safety in health care practice and education
• Patient journey and health journey mapping
• Improving Aboriginal kidney care
• Indigenous governance
• Identifying and addressing complex care needs
• Addressing institutional racism and actively decolonising research processes.

Lead Researcher: Associate Professor Lynette Cusack

An aspect of my research has been on Resilience: from understanding the elements of community disaster resilience, individual psychological resilience amongst health professionals and nursing students and developing a workplace (health services) environmental resilience model. Understanding the link between wellbeing and resilience is another important area of research especially for health professionals and students. This is important because of the current shortage of health professionals, which highlights the need to develop staff wellbeing and retention strategies. This is with the focus of looking after the health workforce to deliver safe, quality patient care. 

Previous PhD Students have explored different aspects of community disaster preparedness and resilience, and this includes students from Indonesia, China, Nepal, and Australia. Currently, a PhD student from Saudi Arabia is exploring nursing students’ wellbeing.

Lead Researcher: Professor Sheree Smith

Non-pharmacological interventions are any interventions that do not involve pharmaceutical medications. We know that exercise can improve the lives of patients with a chronic disease and handwashing can reduce infectious diseases. One area of increasing research interest is the use of nature (green spaces) and social activities as a new non-pharmacological approach to reduce escalating symptoms and improve overall wellness, before and after surgery, after hospital discharge and /or part of primary health care.  

The scope for non-pharmacological interventions is unlimited as we explore, develop and study interventions alongside the use of digital and technological applications and evaluate their cost effectiveness and ensuring patients are partners in our research.

Patient reported measurement is key to understanding if different approaches to care improve the lives of patients. Whilst valid and reliable instruments are used to measure quality of life and other self-reported aspects of health, understanding the biases associated with the use of these instruments help us understand the meaning of patient outcomes. This is an emerging area of research as a greater emphasis is being placed on patients and their families/carers who self-report the effect of care whether it be ongoing care for a chronic illness or the impact of receiving surgical care, such as a transplant, and/or supportive care as part of end-of-life care.

Lead Researcher: Dr Tamara Page

Have you ever wondered if a puzzle or crossword expands your understanding of a concept?  Our education researchers are at the cutting edge in their field, as they bring to life innovation to understand the effect of unconventional learning activities on students in university programs and nurse clinicians in health care organisations.  In the education research theme, our researchers also study the effect of artificial intelligence and whether it facilitates learning or provides a barrier to deep learning.

These highly skilled education researchers work with national and international colleagues from organisations such as the International Council for Nursing (ICN) and provide education advice to the World Health Organisation.