Our research

We manage an extensive portfolio of research projects in collaboration with government, patient advocacy groups and international partners with a shared interest. These include multi-centre clinical trials, systematic reviews and observational studies.

Current programs of work and projects

  • Audit and Feedback Tools – Audit and feedback (A&F) is any summary of clinical performance over a specified period of time (audit) and provision of that summary (feedback) to healthcare organisations, teams or individual healthcare providers with the aim of improving patient care and outcomes. This site is a repository of A&F tools that have been rigorously evaluated in randomised trials and included in the Cochrane A&F review update that are easily accessible to developers, users and researchers in the field to support improvement.
  • Value In Care – optimising surveillance COLonoscopy (VIC-COL) in Victorian healthcare services: a collaborative program of work shared between three Victorian Academic Health Science Centres (Monash Partners, Western Alliance, and Melbourne Academic Centre for Health) aimed at improving high-value use of colonoscopy in Victorian public hospitals.
  • NHMRC Program Grant and NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence – Wiser Healthcare: aims to reduce the inappropriate use of tests and treatments by systematically investigating the problem of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treatment and developing and evaluating sustainable solutions.
  • NHMRC Partnership Centre in Health System Sustainability: aims to explore the issues impacting health care system sustainability and develop and evaluate a set of implementable interventions that are appropriate from clinical, patient and economic perspectives.
  • NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for the Australia & New Zealand Musculoskeletal (ANZMUSC) Clinical Trials Network: a research collaboration of over 200 clinician-researchers from 30 universities, 31 hospitals and 17 research institute that aims to optimise musculoskeletal health through high quality collaborative research and build research capacity in this field.
  • The Australian Rheumatology Association Database (ARAD): a database in collaboration with Arthritis Australia which collects long-term observational data about the outcomes of Australians with inflammatory arthritis.
  • Cochrane Musculoskeletal: as the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Review Group in Australia, we produce the best available evidence to inform decisions in treating arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders.
  • Australasian Satellite of Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) Group: assists evidence-based policy making by supporting, promoting and helping to implement systematic reviews of interventions designed to improve health care practice and the delivery of effective health services.
  • ANZMUSC Living Evidence: aims to conduct Cochrane living system reviews (platelet-rich plasma and stem cell injections for knee osteoarthritis) which are updated whenever new research becomes available, to feed into “living” recommendations in Therapeutic Guidelines Ltd: Rheumatology.
  • Development of a tool for setting priorities for trials in the musculoskeletal field: aims to develop a multi-attribute priority setting tool for the explicit and transparent ranking of musculoskeletal research questions.
  • Identifying and prioritising alternative delivery models to increase value and sustainability of healthcare: A scoping review of systematic reviews of trials and economic studies of alternative delivery arrangements and a Delphi study.
  • Clinician, patient and general public beliefs about diagnostic imaging for low back pain: Qualitative evidence synthesis.
  • Consumer understanding of terms used in imaging reports requested for low back pain.
  • Experiences and perceptions of people living with shoulder pain: A qualitative evidence synthesis.
  • Perceived barriers and facilitators to reducing inappropriate use of imaging in people with shoulder pain.
  • Scoping review of the volume and scope of implementation research conducted in knee osteoarthritis.
  • Comparative effectiveness of ultrasound-guided injection with either autologous platelet rich plasma or glucocorticoid for ultrasound-proven lateral epicondylitis: a three-arm randomised placebo-controlled trial.
  • SUcceSS: SUrgery for Spinal Stenosis – a randomised placebo-controlled trial.
  • Effectiveness of an electronic patient-centred self-management tool for gout sufferers: a cluster randomised controlled trial.
  • Hype or Hope? platelet-rich plasma as a symptom- and disease-modifying treatment for knee osteoarthritis – the RESTORE trial.
  • CROSSFIRE: Combined Randomised and Observational Study of Surgery for Fractures In the distal Radius in the Elderly.
  • CRISTAL: Cluster Randomised Trial of Aspirin versus Low molecular weight heparin for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in joint replacement surgery, a registry-nested study.
  • Development of a decision support tool for patients considering arthroscopic treatment for degenerative knee disease (osteoarthritis, degenerative meniscal tears).
  • Understanding general practitioner and patient expectations for imaging requests and reports of the lumbar spine in people with acute low back pain: A qualitative study.
  • Complementary medicine use in people with inflammatory arthritis.
  • Acute low back pain presenting to the Emergency Department: The patient journey.
  • Development of a core set of outcomes for shoulder trials, part of the OMERACT initiative.
  • TOPS: Trial Of Prevention Strategies for back pain.
  • OPAL: First placebo-controlled trial of opioid analgesia for acute spinal pain.
  • Patterns of care for musculoskeletal conditions by general practitioners in Victoria, Australia.
  • Barriers and enablers to monitoring and deprescribing opioid analgesics for chronic non-cancer pain: a qualitative evidence synthesis.
  • Implementation of the Clinical Care Standards for Osteoarthritis of the Knee.
  • Obstacles, enablers and acceptability of home-based rehabilitation following hip and knee replacement at Cabrini: A qualitative study.
  • Communicating overdiagnosis to the public.