Call for student and graduate placement projects!
Each year, the LHD hosts many student and graduate placements across our various workforce disciplines including medicine, nursing & midwifery and allied health. The completion of a research project is often a requirement for many students and trainees on placement. While this provides crucial learning and development for those on placement, it also offers an opportunity for students and trainees to work on projects that are of interest to LHD staff and that align with organisational priorities.
To facilitate engagement of staff interested in submitting research project proposals for student and graduate placements, a research proposal template has been developed, which can be downloaded using the link below.
Research Project Proposal Submission Form
Submitted research proposals will form a pool of project opportunities, which new students and trainees on placements can choose from as potential research projects. Please submit completed research proposal forms to Dr Alex Stephens, Director of Research, Northern NSW LHD on Alexandre.Stephens@health.nsw.gov.au.
A note on research entry points
Northern NSW Local Health District has several key resources that are useful for research projects. These resources include access to our diverse patient population, large multidisciplinary workforce and vast clinical information systems.
These resources represent readily available entry points for research, which often satisfy the requirements for expedited or exempted ethical review. Some examples include:
Retrospective data analysis
Data, collected in our vast clinical information systems (eMR, FirstNet, SurgiNet), can be extracted and used to conduct descriptive studies, case-control studies, clinical audits (benchmarking & comparison to standards) and studies of activity. These studies, under certain conditions, often meet the requirements for exemption from ethical review (please contact the Research Office for more information regarding exemption).
Case studies
These studies focus on the collection of information and detailed presentation of findings about a particular patient/participant or a small group of patients/participants. Please contact the Research Office to access the Northern NSW LHD template for case reports.
Patient and staff surveys
Surveys represent a very powerful tool for gathering both qualitative and quantitative information from patients, staff and consumers (e.g. collection patient related experience and outcome measures). The findings from surveys can be used to inform practice change, quality improvement or further research. Anonymous surveys can, under certain conditions, meet the requirements for exemption from ethical review (please contact the Research Office for more information regarding exemption).
Please refer to research website for more information on study designs.