PhD Scholarships

The Australian Institute of Health Innovation

The Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) is offering multiple three-year full-time PhD stipends to highly motivated students to work with Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, the holder of an NHMRC program grant for "Creating safe, effective systems of care: the translational challenge". The project aims to deepen our understanding of the quality of Australian healthcare organisations.

Using a quantitative cross-sectional approach, the project will both replicate and build upon a large scale European study (Deepening our understanding of quality in Europe; DUQuE) to explore relationships between quality management systems, hospital culture and leadership and one or more dimensions of the levels of care (e.g., clinical outcomes, patient safety, and patient experience) provided by hospitals across Australia.

The scholarships provide an annual tax-exempt stipend of AUD 27,979 (per annum), which is paid fortnightly for a period of up to three years. The Institute will also assist candidates in applying for relevant top-up scholarships.

Selection Criteria

1. Quality of academic record (a four-year Bachelor's degree with first or upper second class honours from an Australian University in health sciences, psychology, sociology, anthropology or a related field)
2. An interest in/knowledge of the Australian healthcare system, or equivalent qualifications and/or experience
3. Experience of undertaking research (including running research projects, analysing data, and a publication in a peer reviewed journal)
4. Potential for completing a PhD
5. Good organisational skills and demonstrated capacity to meet milestones
6. Good communication and interpersonal skills
7. Commitment to working as part of a team
8. Residency requirement: You must be an Australian citizen, Australian permanent resident or New Zealand citizen.

Expression of interest

Please contact Ms Emily Hogden (e.hogden@unsw.edu.au ) initially, to arrange a time to discuss this opportunity prior to submitting a full application. Please attach your cv and a one-page summary demonstrating how you meet the selection criteria to the email. We encourage potential applicants to submit an expression of interest as soon as possible.

Please visit the Graduate Research School website: http://research.unsw.edu.au/postgraduate-research-scholarships and the AIHI website:
http://www.aihi.unsw.edu.au/study-aihi/phd-opportunities
for more information about the application process for entry to a PhD.

Additional Information

Depending on their area of expertise, the successful candidate will focus specifically on the relationships between quality management systems, hospital culture and leadership and one or more dimensions of the levels of care (e.g., clinical outcomes, patient safety, and patient experience) provided by hospitals across Australia. The candidate will conduct research into, and participate in, the design and development of their specific project, utilising our partner healthcare organisations within Australia. Participants are likely to include hospital management and clinical staff, and patients with a range of conditions.

The candidate will contribute to the project aims and the final topic of the PhD research will be determined by the candidate in collaboration with the research team.

Study Background

After decades of improvements to the health system, patients still receive care that is highly variable, frequently inappropriate, and too often, unsafe. Whilst there is widespread agreement that the current way of doing things in healthcare is unsustainable, our understanding of how to affect large-scale change is insufficient. In recognition of this, a recent study has been undertaken in Europe to deepen the understanding of quality (DUQuE). The AIHI has secured funding as part of an NHMRC program grant to extend this project to Australia and undertake DUQuA (Deepening our Understanding of Quality in Australia).

The DUQuE project has examined the effectiveness of quality improvement systems and strategies in eight countries (Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK), enabling us to benchmark key features of improvement strategies in Australian hospitals against this large sample of European hospitals. We plan to measure the extent to which quality management systems, hospital leadership and culture in a large sample of hospitals are related to:

clinical outcomes for a selection of specific conditions (e.g., stroke, AMI)

patient safety and experience

In conducting this research, we will provide evidence to help hospitals evaluate their own practice and develop their own effective safety and quality improvement programs, and support funding agencies and policymakers in the assessment of hospital quality. With internationally benchmarked data we will be in a position to design improvement and diffusion strategies for Australia, which will factor in best practice from internationally tested strategies.