Research Supervisor Connect
Opportunity for a PhD student to join a collaborative research project to implement and test a virtual care referral pathway for paramedics to manage people with back pain. The project is a collaboration between the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, and established health services, including Royal Prince Alfred Virtual Hospital and NSW Ambulance.
Camperdown - School of Public Health
Back pain is a common presentation to Australian ambulance services. Currently, ~30% of patients with back pain who are managed, discharged to stay at home and referred by paramedics to community health services for follow-up care reconnect with emergency health services. Virtual care services are a new alternative to in-person hospital care, providing high-quality care remotely to patients with back pain, to reduce hospital admission.
This research program will involve a number of projects including a proposed randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation, and qualitative research. The research project aims; to implement and test a virtual care referral pathway for paramedics to manage people with back pain. The project will explore the effectiveness of the virtual care pathway on health service outcomes, such as presentation to the emergency department, patient re-contact with ambulance service, re-presentation to the emergency department and admission to hospital, and patient outcomes, like disability. The nested qualitative will explore clinician perspectives of the virtual care referral pathway, and enablers and barriers to its use. Another qualitative project will explore patient views and satisfaction with the virtual care that they received for their back pain. The nested economic evaluation aims to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the virtual care referral pathway compared to usual care delivered by paramedics (e.g. transport to hospital) from a healthcare funder perspective.
The findings from the program of research will be translated into practice, through our partnership with health services and the Sydney Local Health District.
The research team at the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health consists of experts in back pain, including clinicians and researchers. A/Prof Gustavo Machado is an experienced back pain and health service researcher with an interest in emergency care for back pain, and extensive collaborations within Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Dr Simon Vella is a back pain and health service researcher whose primary focus is on the management of back pain by ambulance services and paramedics and works closely with NSW Ambulance. Prof Chris Maher is a global leader in back pain research and trialist who provides leadership, mentorship and supervision.
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 3689