“St John of God Health Care has an integrated and coordinated vision and plan for research,” Professor Webb says.
“Research Week was a wonderful opportunity for us to gather insights from our hospitals, services and industry colleagues, and to feed these insights in to our overarching vision and plan for research at St John of God Health Care.”
Professor Webb says there were three important gains from Research Week 2023, held 24-28 July:
1) Increased reach
“We wanted involvement across as many of our hospitals and services as possible. This year we expanded the location of our activities, from one hospital to three (St John of God Midland, Murdoch and Subiaco Hospitals), and we had presentations by colleagues from our east coast and regional Western Australian hospitals. This tripled the number of presentations across the week, and all sessions were available online, giving colleagues across the country an opportunity to attend and be part of the conversation.”
2) Feedback from the frontline
“Across the more than 50 presentations and panel discussions during the week, we heard direct from caregivers working at the bedside in our hospitals and with clients in our services, which areas or topics they felt our organisation should be researching and how we should be conducting that research.”
3) Universal endorsement of our research purpose
“Overwhelmingly, there was consensus among our St John of God Health Care and industry colleagues that research by our organisation should be focussed on improving health care outcomes for our patients and clients – with a particular focus on generating and implementing evidence for the most common conditions that our patients and clients are presenting with, which have unmet clinical need. These are the areas where there is a real possibility that the work we can do will move the dial.”
With the insights gained during Research Week 2023, Professor Webb says work continues on the organisation’s overarching research strategy.
Activities underway and coming soon include:
- Enhanced structure and governance for research at St John of God Health Care.
- Workshops designed to refine the organisation’s priority research areas.
- Establishment of a new research forum – a platform where St John of God Health Care researchers can present research proposals and receive feedback, to optimise their approach and be as prepared as possible for ethics and governance requirements.
More information about research at St John of God Health Care.
