Healthcare Improvement and Implementation

Healthcare Improvement and Implementation science is a growing and vitally important field of applied healthcare delivery research. It has developed in response to the recognised need that systems established for the delivery of front-line clinical care need to be continually strengthened and adapted to clinical needs. This has arisen in the light of the remarkable success of clinical medicine, nursing, midwifery, and allied health that has in turn spawned issues such as safety, ethics, cost and policy pressures to achieve greater system efficiency and effectiveness globally, combined with rising public expectation of high quality, safe and patient-centered service delivery.

Research areas

Implementation and Healthcare Improvement

The Healthcare Improvement and Implementation topics undertaken in this theme include:

  1. Implementation and Healthcare Improvement
  2. Healthcare Systems of the Future
  3. Evaluation Methods in Implementation Research
  4. Centre of Clinical Effectiveness

Our Team

  • Professor Helena Teede
  • Associate Professor Jacqueline Boyle
  • Associate Professor Lisa Moran
  • Associate Professor Cheryce Harrison

Major Collaboration

The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre (Health in Preconception, Pregnancy and Postpartum – HiPPP)

Major Current Project

Health in Preconception, Pregnancy and Postpartum (HiPPP)
This program of research is funded by the Medical Research Future Fund’s Boosting Prevention program, through The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre. The research is led by the HIPPP Collaborative, a multi-disciplinary national/international network led from the Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation. Its primary aim is to improve lifestyle, improve health and prevent maternal obesity. This work is underpinned by partnership, research, capacity building and knowledge translation.

Healthcare Systems of the Future

Overview

This is a three year, interdisciplinary research project that will generate knowledge that supports the diffusion and scaling up of redesign and innovation initiatives within health care systems. The overall aim of the project is to enable hospitals and other health care organisations to develop capabilities that will ensure investments in redesign and improvement activities have ‘whole system’ economic and health care benefits.

Our Team

Dr Tracy Robinson

Evaluation Methods in Implementation Research

MCHRI is an internationally recognised leader in evaluation methods and implementation research. Guided by the MCHRI Knowledge to Action Framework we work on solution-focused research with industry partners to develop the evidence base needed to inform implementation, translation, and scale up of programs designed to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians.

Centre of Clinical Effectiveness

This program is integrated with the National Association of Diabetes Centres accredited Centre of Excellence, at Monash Health in diabetic research, education and clinical care.

Overview

Centre for Clinical Effectiveness (CCE) is an evidence-based practice support unit that partners with health professionals, managers and executive leadership to implement evidence-informed practice to improve healthcare. Currently, CCE represents a unique model of evidence-based support working within a health service. In collaboration with Monash University and Monash Health, CCE is able to respond directly to the need for research translation with relevant and high quality reviews of the evidence conducted by a skilled and experienced team.

Our Team

Ms Angela Melder

CCE supports the mobilisation of knowledge into practice which is a complex activity involving evidence, diverse stakeholders, contexts, teams with appropriate skills, mechanisms and processes. Facilitating one component of these broad ranging activities is that of knowledge synthesis.

This Centre partners with health service professionals, managers, and executive leadership to facilitate evidence informed decision-making by undertaking tailored and rapid knowledge synthesis. This Centre is embedded within a large health service and supports and informs clinical and operational decisions with diverse types of evidence. Embedded within a health service enables the mobilisation of evidence directly to the point of health service decision-making in a timely manner. This also provides a unique opportunity to develop ‘knowledge products’ and to evaluate the impact of both product and evidence on clinical and operational decisions in health service delivery.

The provision of different types of evidence synthesis reports are produced for different health service activities and processes which includes the development of practice guidelines, informing quality improvement initiatives, guidance about implementing evidence-based change, and program evaluation.

Reviews

Our information, expertise and resources guide health service personnel in using the best available evidence to inform decision-making throughout the organisation and in everyday clinical practice. In 2015 CCE undertook the following reviews that have influenced organisation wide change:

  • The Weekend Effect: A literature review about the impact of day of week and time of day of presentation on patient outcomes
  • Effective strategies to manage prescribing errors in hospital patients with known medication allergies: A literature review
  • A rapid literature review about strategies to support healthcare delivery during the winter
  • An overview on the clinical effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis of robot-assisted surgery compared to open or laparoscopic surgery
  • Effectiveness of intermittent pneumatic compression with/without pharmacological prophylaxis in addition to or in place of graduated compression stockings in Urology and Neurosurgery
  • Best practice for conducting morbidity and mortality reviews