Some of the AUS HEARTS team was fortunate enough to be presenting at the Western NSW Health Research Network (WHRN) symposium 3 weeks ago, held in Orange, NSW.
The conference brought together researchers, consumers, clinicians and advisors to share their knowledge, progress and experience on a range of topics all under the theme on “Innovating for Health Equity: Bridging Gaps in Rural Healthcare”.
Catherine Sanford, one of our Chief investigators, presenting during the lightning talks on “Identifying Effective Hypertension Screening and Follow-Up Strategies for Rural and Remote Australians”. It was a 3 minute snapshot on the 3 phase plan to consult community members and health care provide conduct screening and map potential follow-up pathways. This work is funded by the Cardiovascular Research network rural, regional and remote project grant. Catherine commented “It was inspiring to see and share all the wonderful work happening across our regions. It was also great to make new connections and catch up with old colleagues face-to-face.”
Katrina Wilkinson, our health service engagement officer, presented on “Adapting HEARTS for rural Australia: integrating primary care context mapping and policy discourse analysis to strengthen hypertension care in Western NSW”. This provided an overview of the progress of the project so far and how we have adapted to the priorities of the rural health system, such as the data collected from practice software, and National the progress in developing the elevated blood pressure and hypertension guidelines. Katrina “enjoyed listening to all the fantastic work being done across our community. As an early career worker, I found it very inspiring to hear and see the capacity and passion of our rural researchers”.
Monica, one our HDR students, attended to get inspired by other researchers for her own projects. She found the keynote speaker Dr Anthony Brown very interesting, with his talk as a Research Manager, Health Consumers NSW. Monica's take-way from his session was her research needs to "Shift from wanting macro level change to what we can enact at the local community capacity level to compliment team-based care approach and how clinician-led virtual care pathways can be a conduit between community-led hypertension self-care and provider level care"
Overall, the conference was a wonderful event. It was fantastic to see the breadth, depth and expertise in research that is occurring across our rural communities. The strong focus on community and consumer engagement being at the heart of research, is something the AUS HEARTS team aligns with. It was fantastic to also meet face to face with one of our Chief investigators, and keynote speaker of the event, Andrew Goodman. Hopefully next year, we will be able to share more results and lessons learned from our phase 1 and phase 2.
A special thank you to the to The University of Sydney FMH Cardiovascular Initiative (CVI) Network who sponsored Catherine's attendance, and The University of Sydney FMH Digital Health and Informatics Network for sponsoring Katrina's attendance.
(Left to right) Andrew Goodman, Katrina Wilkinson, Catherine Sanford and Monica Murray
