Tag Archives: Research

Small Hospitals Emergency Database (SHED) project begins data collection

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February 2011

The SHED project is going full steam ahead with its data collection phase underway having started in January 2011. This phase of the project captures 12 months of emergency department data across six rural hospital locations. The data entered into the system will be used to accurately describe what happens in small rural emergency departments. We have had a high level of enthusiasm from participating hospital emergency departments and they are all entering their data with a high level of data accuracy.

Small Hospitals Emergency Database (SHED) project has employed 6 research assistants

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December 2010

Six new casual research assistants have been hired to support the SHED project at each of the participating hospital locations. The research assistant role is central to the success of the data gathering phase of the project. Our research assistants will be helping hospital emergency department staff to understand the project requirements for data entry accuracy, along with training and providing support. CREM are pleased to announce and welcome our latest recruits: Nicola Taylor (Portland), Jenny Foster (Heywood), Margaret Tesselaar (Timboon),   Grant Holmes (Camperdown), Carolyn Crowe (Moyne) and Heather Hicks (Terang).

Deakin research into regional head trauma

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March 2010

A research project has started in south-west Victoria to find out why people who suffer major trauma head injuries recover better in city areas than in country regions.

Deakin University Warrnambool Campus PhD student Ben Fisk said there was a common belief that people injured in metropolitan areas fared better than those with comparable injuries in country areas.

“Anecdotally there seems to be different outcomes between city and country regions so our first task is to identify and analyse the existing data to see if that is the case,” Mr Fisk said.

The research will consider the total range of trauma head injuries from car crashes and home falls to farm and industrial accidents.

Mr Fisk said his research would investigate and report on possible factors which could influence the apparent imbalance.

“The most obvious would seem to be the time delay in getting injured people to treatment but there hasn’t been a study into the whole situation which will make the findings important for future planning.”

“The goal for this year is to create a picture of what is happening in Western Victoria and compare it to Melbourne.”

Mr Fisk comes from a paramedic background and has worked with the Victorian Ambulance Service in Geelong and Warrnambool for the past nine years. He hopes to use his research to learn more about pre-hospital management systems and how rural and regional people access and utilise ambulance services.

The impact of an emergency rescue helicopter in south-west Victoria will be considered in the three-year study. “There are not enough statistics yet in the south-west area to judge what impact it is having,” Mr Fisk said.

The research will also look at the processes when head trauma patients are taken to small country hospitals.

The research has been funded by the Windermere Foundation which provides special grants for the development, introduction and/or evaluation of new practices, models and interventions to improve health in country Victoria

Deakin University’s Warrnambool Campus Pro Vice-Chancellor (Rural and Regional) Professor Sue Kilpatrick and the Director of the Centre Rural Emergency Medicine Tim Baker are joint supervisors of the research.