Friday 23 July 2021 12:27pm
Eight Otago projects have received funding in the Health Research Council’s first round of Health Delivery Research Activation Grants.
Eight University of Otago researchers are sharing more than $230,000 from the first round of the Health Research Council (HRC)’s Health Delivery Research Activation Grants.
These grants help established or prospective researchers to work on evidence to support future health projects. Up to $30,000 is awarded for a 12-month term.
One of the successful Otago proposals in this round aims to bring the right information and the right people together to develop a well informed and inclusive proposal for a national review of professional spiritual care in New Zealand healthcare. Led by Dr Richard Egan, from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, the ultimate aim of this activity is to understand and modernise spiritual care in New Zealand healthcare, thereby improving health outcomes, patient reported outcomes, equity, staff capacity and satisfaction and meet Treaty of Waitangi obligations.
“Almost everyone uses our healthcare services in New Zealand. We know that up to 70 per cent of people with serious illness want spiritual care. Therefore, our project has the potential to impact most New Zealanders. Recognising spiritual care, whether through spiritual care experts, mostly known as chaplains, or through spiritual care generalists (all healthcare professionals), has the potential to help transform healthcare, where suffering, compassion and love are remembered in our busy and often stretched healthcare services,” Dr Egan says.
Health Delivery Research Activation Grants recipients:
Dr Jennifer Dunn, University of Otago, Christchurch
Early Vocational Intervention after Stroke (EVIS) Study
12 months, $ 29,984
Dr Richard Egan, University of Otago
Spiritual care in New Zealand healthcare
12 months, $ 29,746
Dr Carrie Falling, University of Otago
Framework for developing an interdisciplinary temporomandibular disorder clinic
12 months, $ 28,708
Professor Jean Hay-Smith, University of Otago, Wellington
Kotahitanga: A Kaumātua programme to address rehabilitation needs for Māori
12 months, $ 29,434
Dr Bryndl Hohmann-Marriott, University of Otago
Menstrual apps offering clinical advice: Risk or resource?
12 months, $ 30,000
Dr Amanda Landers, University of Otago, Christchurch
The use of pancreatic enzyme replacement (PERT) in inoperable pancreatic cancer
12 months, $ 22,952
Professor Debra Waters, University of Otago
Individual training programs to reduce frailty in older adults with hypertension
10 months, $ 30,000
Dr John Woodfield, University of Otago
Optimisation of a NZ-focused e-health application to improve patient outcomes
12 months, $ 30,000