Engaging patients and families in communication across transitions of care: an integrative review
Effective engagement and good communication with patients and their families and support people are key to ensuring safe transitions in care.
How our research is pioneering better and safer healthcare
The Centre for Quality and Safety Research (QPS) is one of four research domains within Deakin University’s Institute for Health Transformation and is embedded within Deakin's School of Nursing and Midwifery.
The work of researchers within QPS spans health and aged care, encompassing research in residential, community, subacute and acute care settings.
We improve the quality and safety of patient care through applied health services research. Our work is conducted in a well-established, distinctive and internationally renowned integrated health service partnership network.
Our research pillars of patient safety, patient experience and health workforce span the whole patient journey, and encompass residential, community, subacute and acute care settings.
Our research themes
The Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research is uniquely positioned within academic and healthcare environments to identify and rapidly respond to emerging complex care and patient safety issues. Our research programs have been generated by the needs of the QPS health service partners and can be organised into the following focus areas.
Patient experience
Our research theme focuses on patients’ and family members’ experiences of health services to understand their perspectives and the processes of care delivery. Patient experience research is central to quality healthcare, alongside clinical effectiveness and safety.
Patient safety
Our research theme focuses on patient safety and minimising harm as part of improving the safety and quality of healthcare. Patient safety research has important implications for healthcare policy and practice across diverse settings, including acute, subacute, aged and community care, and consumer and health professional education.
Health workforce
Our research theme focuses on developing and evaluating innovations to improve the capacity, responsiveness and productivity of the health workforce. We examine the effective use of technologies such as telehealth to provide improved quality of care. Our research is conducted in partnership with the health sector to evaluate these initiatives.
Help us to improve patient wellbeing
Join us at QPS and be part of a team that’s striving to enhance patient experiences and patient health. Our projects focus on improving safety and healthcare outcomes by marrying research, education and practice to innovations in research and teaching.
I feel immensely proud of the achievements of the QPS researchers in undertaking meaningful health research, generating and translating knowledge that contributes to the quality and safety of healthcare for the communities we serve.
Alfred Deakin Professor Alison Hutchinson
Director, Centre for Quality and Safety Research
Our researchers
Alfred Deakin Professor Alison Hutchinson is Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Deakin University, Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research in the Institute for Health Transformation at Deakin University, and holds a Chair in Nursing at Monash Health.
Her primary research interest centres on improving care through knowledge translation. As Director of the Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research she provides strategic direction for the Centre, comprising more than 40 scholars undertaking research in the areas of patient safety, patient experience and workforce development.
She has the distinction of being one of only a few Australian nurses to have successfully completed a formal postdoctoral fellowship program overseas, having trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Featured projects
QPS research priorities are on patient safety, the patient experience and improving the productivity of the health workforce.
Communication and coordination processes supporting integrated transitional care: Australian healthcare practitioners’ perspectives
Identifying strengths and weaknesses in transitional care for older adults in an Australian setting.
Our partnerships
The QPS health service partners govern more than 30 acute and subacute hospitals, over 12 residential aged care services and employ approximately 30000 nurses and midwives. providing care for more than 3million Victorians annually.
QPS integrates the School of Nursing and Midwifery’s long-standing public and private health service partnerships with one of Australia’s largest schools of nursing and midwifery. QPS researchers are embedded within six major Victorian health services:
- Alfred Health
- Barwon Health
- Eastern Health
- Epworth Healthcare
- Monash Health
- Western Health
The QPS health service partners govern 30 acute and subacute care hospitals, 12 residential aged care facilities, employ approximately 30,000 nurses and midwifes and provide care for more than 3 million Victorians annually.
Contact us
Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research (QPS)
General enquiries
Email QPS
LinkedIn: Deakin School of Nursing & Midwifery
Twitter: @DeakinQPS
School of Nursing and Midwifery
Faculty of Health
Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway
Burwood VIC 3125