The Network for Orthopaedic and Fracture Education and Research (NOFEAR) Unit was established when the NOF ward commenced. For the last decade, the multidisciplinary research collaborative has been going from strength to strength, cultivating new areas of pragmatic clinical research helping to improve outcomes for hip fracture patients – and being recognised for it.
The unit was awarded the 2016 TPCH Clinical Excellence Award, accompanied by geriatrician Dr Chrys Pulle winning TPCH Researcher of the Year award that same year. The unit won the Complex Diseases Challenges award at the 2019 Metro North Research Excellence Awards, and also won Health Round Table in 2013.
The unit has been internationally recognised through multidisciplinary research led by dietitian Dr Jack Bell in the areas of malnutrition diagnosis, management and treatment in hip fracture patients to better improve post-operative outcomes.
The collaborative has supported extensive research led by physiotherapist Rebecca Ferrier into the importance of early mobility and independent factors affecting mobility for patients after hip fracture. It has investigated mobility, falls and readmissions after discharge for those patients who return to community. As a result, TPCH has changed routine post-surgical practice with community dwelling patients now having a physiotherapy review as part of their surgical review 10 weeks after surgery.
Advanced trainees have researched, presented and published at the Australia New Zealand Geriatric Society annual scientific meetings under supervision of geriatricians Dr Alisa Crouch and Dr Chrys Pulle in areas of enteral feeding decision support tool, rates of gastrointestinal bleeding and outcomes of anaemia in acute hip fracture patients.
NOFEAR members have together published more than 200 publications that have received 10 or more citations.