The HRC has offered nearly $800,000 in funding for four research partnership projects that are seeking to improve New Zealand’s health care services in the short term.
These projects are funded through the HRC’s annual Research Partnerships for New Zealand Health Delivery (RPNZHD) initiative, which involves health researchers working in collaboration with health delivery organisations.
HRC Research Partnerships Group Manager Sharon McCook says a key feature of this health-delivery programme is the focus on collaboration with clinicians and end-users, often in partnership with district health boards.
“This approach greatly increases the chances of the research findings being speedily translated into practice to achieve tangible health and economic benefits.”
RPNZHD projects (2015):
Ms Gayl Humphrey
The University of Auckland, in partnership with Auckland DHB, Waitemata DHB and Counties Manukau DHB
Development and implementation of an app to support antimicrobial prescribing
18 months, $200,000
Antibiotic resistance is one of the great global scourges of modern medicine and public health. A key contribution to resistance is poor adherence by clinicians to evidence-based antibiotic guidelines. This may often result in over prescribing antibiotics, particularly of very broad spectrum antibiotics. Ms Humphrey will lead a project that will explore whether a smartphone application results in greater adherence to guidelines by clinicians, and a reduction in ‘prescription errors’.
Associate Professor Ralph Maddison
The University of Auckland, in partnership with Auckland DHB and Waitemata DHB
Text4Heart: Improving adherence in people with heart disease
18 months, $198,000
Associate Professor Maddison will lead a project that will assess if existing cardiac rehabilitation services can be improved by means of a text messaging self-management programme (Text4Heart).
Professor Timothy Stokes
University of Otago, in partnership with Southern DHB
Delivering better care for people with severe COPD in the southern region
15 months, $199,793
Professor Stokes will undertake a research project that aims to improve the health care of people with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study will determine health care usage by people with severe COPD admitted to southern hospitals through case notes review and will determine the health care needs of people with severe COPD through interviewing a wide range of patients after admission and six months later.
Dr Paul Young
Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, in partnership with the Intensive Care Research Centre, the Irish National Health Research Board, the Intensive Care Foundation and New Zealand district health boards
Stress ulcer prophylaxis in the Intensive Care Unit
18 months, $200,000
Dr Young will lead a large scale comparative effectiveness study which will seek to establish the safety and efficacy of using proton pump inhibitors vs. histamine-2 receptor blockers as the routine strategy for the treatment of stress ulcers in mechanically ventilated ICU patients.