About us

Data Quality and Analytics

Key Contact:   Prof Kirsten Vallmuur

The Queensland trauma system requires an integrated, efficient, coordinated and sustainable injury data solution to meet the strategic and operational needs of contemporary emergency health service providers, trauma clinicians, health administrators and external stakeholders.  A central mission for JTI’s Data Quality and Analytics Unit is working with a range of stakeholders across Government departments who are responsible for injury management, prevention, and regulation to facilitate interdepartmental approaches to data acquisition, interpretation and response.  The unit prides itself on our collaborative open approach, providing genuine support and expertise which facilitates ongoing enhancements to injury data systems in Queensland to enable stronger evidence-based policy and practice.  Through building sustainable approaches using routinely collected and linked injury data across the continuum of care and working with a broad range of stakeholders, we aim to contribute to reductions in the overall frequency and severity of injury in the community, as well as reduce the costs and improve the outcomes for individuals affected by injury.

Jamieson Trauma Institute’s Data Quality and Analytics Unit is currently undertaking research projects drawing on linked injury data, available through existing data systems in Queensland. The work of the unit is focused on scoping the breadth and depth of data collected on injury across the continuum of care, developing best practice methods, resources and tools for using linked injury data, and analysing these data to better understand the causes, trends, patterns, burden, costs and outcomes of injury in Queensland.

Injury Prevention

Key Contact:  Dr Ruth Barker

Those who have experienced or treated injury come to realise that life can change in a moment and that moment can irrevocably alter a life course.

Whilst injury rescue, treatment and recovery are vital, there is a parallel body of work in understanding patterns and antecedents to injuries.

Capturing and subsequently leveraging change with this knowledge requires a data foundation that includes routine health data, specialised data capture and patient stories, as well as expertise in understanding, interpreting and then translating this knowledge into preventative action.

Whether intentional or unintentional, most injuries can be prevented.

There are said to be 5 E’s of injury prevention:

• Engineering: (re-)design of a product/ system to reduce the likelihood of misuse/ mistakes.
• Enforcement: legislative change to require adoption of new designs with follow through to ensure that there is adherence.
• Education: Often seen as the easiest route to changing injury incidence, education rarely takes into consideration challenges of message penetration, linguistic barriers and the difference between providing information and actually affecting change in behaviour. The greatest value of ‘education’ is creating a movement that will embrace and accept engineering and enforcement strategies.
• Economic Incentives: Recognises that the determinants of injury lie not with those health services who pick up the pieces, but with the economic and industrial mechanisms that drive our global systems.
• Emergency Responses: A necessary but late strategy to rescue the already injured and salvage what remains.

But there is another E; Elimination which requires a combination of all of the strategies listed above:

The most effective injury prevention comes when a risk is eliminated, and the void left behind (if there is one) is absorbed rather than being replaced by another risk.

JTI envisions the establishment of systems which connect across the fields of trauma, acute care, rehabilitation, long-term outcome, and prevention; underpinned by collaboration and partnership with a diverse range of stakeholders across Queensland, nationally and internationally.

As such, one of the key priorities of JTI is to reinvigorate the focus on injury prevention activities across the state. While there are a range of different activities being undertaken in the injury prevention space, there is no centralised coordination of activities, knowledge, contacts, and priorities.  JTI sees this as an opportunity for collaboration across academia, government, clinical and community groups and we see ourselves as a potential hub for injury surveillance and prevention connections.

JTI is home to the Queensland Injury Surveillance Unit (QISU). QISU has been collecting emergency department injury surveillance data since 1999. This rich data set has been used extensively to inform and influence policy and regulatory change across a broad spectrum of injury prevention strategies in Queensland and Nationally.

Clinical Trials

Key Contact: Prof Jeff Lipman

Observational studies and laboratory experiments replicating ‘real life’ clinical conditions are essential to understanding how to better improve the diagnosis and treatment of human disease, including the effects of trauma. However, sometimes these research methods can be misleading. Before recommending a new drug or test for widespread adoption, it should be tested under safe, controlled conditions in a series of clinical trials. Usually these trials compare the new drug or test to current treatments.

Clinical trials are classified as Phase I, the first time an intervention is tested in humans; to Phase II, the first time in patients with the relevant condition; or Phase III: large, multi-centre studies that confirm safety and effectiveness in many circumstances. Clinicians and investigators at Jamieson Trauma Institute run Phase II and Phase III trials relevant to trauma, and participate as site investigators in Phase III multi-centre trials. Notably, patients involved in these studies are all hospital trauma patients; JTI does not conduct Phase I clinical trials in healthy volunteers. Patients and their relatives are asked about trial participation as soon as possible, and all trials have undergone independent scientific and ethical review.

Diagnostics and Innovations

Key Contacts: Prof Michael Schuetz

Improving Trauma care can occur through various pathways. The focus of this stream is to add value in trauma care by innovation. Value can be added by either raising the quality of care or reducing the costs without compromising the quality with new medical devices or innovative care delivery models. That new ideas will find its way into clinical practice the view from patients, physicians, policy makers, providers and payers have to be taken into consideration likewise industrial processes to address regulatory aspects.

Diagnostics is fundamental for this approach by defining the starting point and the outcome. In recent years there has been rapid innovation and development in the area of diagnostics (which includes for example medical imaging such as MRI scanning, laboratory tests such as blood tests, equipment for monitoring the patient’s condition). The pace of these changes has sometimes been well ahead of research into their applications in trauma and certainly ahead of clinical practice. Many ways of preventing injury or managing injury could benefit from these new advances. Brisbane and the Jamieson Trauma Institute are well positioned to take advantage of these developments as there is great capability in Queensland, including the greatest concentration of advanced imaging equipment and expertise in the country. There are also key research leaders in the development of diagnostics, such as new blood tests for detecting and monitoring trauma. JTI aims to exploit these capabilities with research aimed at ensuring more accurate diagnosis and more appropriate management of trauma, management which is tailored to individual patient needs.

Education and Training

Key Contacts: Dr Michael Muller, Dr Frances Williamson

Jamieson Trauma Institute recognises the importance of trauma education for all clinicians as an effective strategy to ultimately enhance the delivery of trauma care. As an innovative institute, JTI is well positioned to deliver reliable and contemporary trauma training.

The potential to deliver quality educational experiences is further enhanced by the ability to partner with a range of agencies to develop dynamic learning platforms and processes. Education courses are currently being produced in conjunction with the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Trauma Service.

This educational activity will target focused knowledge and skills for frontline providers. While formal course development will be an ongoing theme, other strategies such as podcasting and lectures will be employed by the institute to disseminate quality trauma learning. Education will constitute an important pillar within the institute, alongside research and data collection, to maximise trauma care for the people of Queensland.

Virtual Trauma Centre (VTC): Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Trauma Care

Key Contacts: Prof Mark Midwinter, A/Prof Cliff Pollard

This stream researches the ways that augmented reality and virtual reality can be employed to improve the preparation and delivery of trauma care across an integrated trauma system, projecting resources to support patients and clinicians.

Interactive Telepresence for Trauma Support.
Augmented Reality (AR) can be utilised to bring remote expertise to the assessment and treatment of an injured patient, including time-critical interventions. This work will explore how to project expertise along the patient journey from point of injury to definitive care allowing bi-directional transmission of audio-visual data and direct real-time interaction allowing remote annotation on to the patient to facilitate any unfamiliar interventions. This allows the horizons of the major trauma centres to be expanded and supporting care across the trauma system.

Virtual Reality for Trauma Care
Virtual Reality (VR) technology can facilitate preparation of trauma teams to deliver care, when team members may be unfamiliar with other team members, key members change or to prepare for specific clinical scenarios.
VR can help prepare and practice uncommon time-critical interventions when real world experience would take years to acquire and where skill degradation and team turnover precludes any individual or team becoming expert.
Utilising ‘multi-player serious gaming’ technology, frequent, multidimensional interactions in complex scenarios and can be fitted to individual contexts (eg. the real facility layout where the individual participants practice with recognisable individual ‘players’). It also allows team performance data analytics and feedback. This technology will be explored, developed and tested in improving preparation of trauma responses.

Rehabilitation and Outcome Measurement

Key Contact: Prof Justin Kenardy, Dr Alejandro Melendez Calderon

Injury following trauma can range from minor to catastrophic.  Minor trauma typically means injuries that allow early return to previous activities and lifestyle.  The more severe the trauma related injury, the longer and more complicated the recovery journey will be.

For those with catastrophic injuries, such as head trauma or burns, extensive rehabilitation will be needed.  The goal of the rehabilitation program is to assist injured people achieve their best possible return of pre-injury functions and activities. Severely injured trauma patients are also likely to need further re-visits to rehabilitation.

Jamieson Trauma Institute recognises the need for timely and effective rehabilitation programs for people with traumatic injuries.  In line with the institute’s desire to have strong evidence supporting all its activities, there is an ongoing need to measure what outcomes have been achieved by those rehabilitation programs.

Quality of Care and Processes

Key Contact: Mr Michael Handy, Dr Matt Masel, Darryl O’Callaghan

The Jamieson Trauma Institute recognises the fundamental importance of providing high quality care to trauma patients across the state with the robust support of sustainable processes. The objective of the Quality of Care and Process Theme is overseeing initiatives undertaken by the Jamieson Trauma Institute to ensure they are patient – centred and that all aspects of trauma care are included. The theme will evaluate projects based on Tertiary level care, the end care provider and the consumer perspective. We plan to work with providers of care from the initial trauma event to the community health care provider and everyone in between. The overarching aim of the theme is to continually drive improvements in the delivery of care and services provided to the traumatically injured patient no matter where they reside in Queensland.