Impact Report 2019-2020

Our Impact Report 2019-2020 highlights how our partners came together in new and innovative collaborations to strengthen translational research activity and make an impact on our mission of better healthcare outcomes.

Impact Report 2019-2020

Stronger Together

2020 was a momentous year for everyone, including Sydney Health Partners. The 2019-2020 Impact Report reflects the reality that COVID-19 overshadowed all other considerations and, accordingly, the opening section of the report is dedicated to the responses of our partners to the pandemic.

COVID-19 also influenced the choice of theme - Stronger Together – which is represented by woven strands of rope. Throughout the report you will find inspiring examples of the ways in which our partners came together in new and innovative collaborations to strengthen translational research activity.

Here also are stories of our Medical Research Future Fund projects, and examples of translational research that, after seed funding from SHP, grew to make an impact on our mission of better healthcare outcomes.

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Novel low-cost gene test could improve treatment of breast cancer
The PROSPER-2 genomic test could become a quick, low-cost and hospital-delivered alternative to commercially available genomic testing of breast cancer, which is often unaffordable for patients. A project to test the accuracy of PROSPER-2 compared to other prognostic tools has received a grant from Sydney Health Partners, using money from the Medical Research Future Fund. ... Read more
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Polypharmacy In The Elderly
This phenomenon, known as polypharmacy, can have unintended and deleterious effects on an elderly consumer’s health, potentially leading to falls and cognitive impairment. Professor Sarah Hilmer is on a mission to promote the deprescribing of unnecessary drugs. She says inappropriate polypharmacy is almost universal amongst older public hospital inpatients but not addressed by routine care. ... Read more
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Forging a New Pathway for Chest Pain Patients
A clinical trial supported by Sydney Health Partners has been reducing unnecessary hospital admissions by pioneering a new way to assess the large numbers of patients who present to emergency departments (EDs) with chest pain. An alternative clinical pathway, dubbed Rapid Access Cardiology Clinics (RACCs), has been successfully established at three major Sydney hospitals to ... Read more
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Project Helps Marginalised HCV Suffers Get Treatment
University of Sydney Professor Geoff McCaughan of Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) says it appears that large numbers of hepatitis C (HCV) sufferers are missing the opportunity to receive the new treatments for reasons which are as much social as well as medical. HCV can now be easily treated – and in most cases cured ... Read more
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Mobile Phone App Helping Kidney Disease Sufferers Take Control of Their Health
The SUCCESS smart phone app contains information and generic health literacy skills training to encourage CKD sufferers to be more involved in making decisions about their care. Chief investigator, University of Sydney Professor Angela Webster, says the project was prompted by evidence that people with lower health literacy and from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) ... Read more
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How Standardising the Doctor-Patient Consultation Could Improve Health Care
So says University of Sydney Professor Madeleine King, who is investigating how to successfully implement the use of Patient Reported Measures (PRMs) in a way that will inform and guide clinicians in real time when treating patients. Professor King says that the goal of using patient feedback is a key element in the philosophy of ... Read more
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Quality Care Dashboard Helps Multidisciplinary Teams
The Sydney West Translational Cancer Research Centre (SW-TCRC), led by Professor Paul Harnett, funds a flagship program “Using Emerging Health Data to Impact on Patient Care”. As part of this flagship program, a project with support from both Sydney Health Partners and SW-TCRC is making important progress towards overcoming technical and organisational barriers to bringing ... Read more
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Immune System “Memories” Guide Treatment Decisions for Lung Cancer Patients
It is now possible, for example, to produce stable long-term remissions in some advanced lung-cancer patients by a process called immune checkpoint therapy. Checkpoint therapies are, however, effective in only one-in-five patients, are very expensive and can induce severe side-effects. Now a Sydney Health Partners-funded project has developed a novel blood test which can predict ... Read more
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Filling an Evidence Gap to Improve Vaccination Advice to Some Pregnant Women
One of these concerns women who become pregnant while taking one of a new class of “biological” immune-suppressant drugs called bDMARDs. Typically used to treat autoimmune conditions including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and psoriasis, there is the potential that bDMARDs might reduce the effectiveness of vaccinations routinely given to pregnant women. It is ... Read more
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Campaign to Encourage Full Term Pregnancies For Healthier Babies
But new evidence has recently prompted the definition of full term to be tightened to no earlier than 39 weeks. Medical research shows that a trend towards planned births occurring before that time is associated with an increase in health problems amongst newborns, such as needing specialised care for breathing or feeding. Children born before ... Read more
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Implementing a Better Model of Care for Chronic Osteoarthritis
Without more cost-effective interventions, increasing rates of chronic disease are projected to overwhelm the resources of health services. One such threat to health system sustainability is osteoarthritis (OA), which affects one-in-eight Australians and is the leading cause of premature retirement. Surgery for osteoarthritic hips and knees is costing the national health system at least $4 ... Read more
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Putting Anorexia Patients on the Path to Better Health
Though relatively rare, this eating disorder has a mortality rate of about 5% per decade, escalating to 20% after 20 years’ duration of illness – the highest death rate of any mental illness. Effective treatment requires complex and sustained interventions by multiple medical disciplines and, even then, only about half of patients will achieve complete ... Read more
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New Research Investigates Ways To Make Genomic Analysis Clinically Routine
The recently-acquired ability to sequence a person’s whole or partial genome quickly and relatively inexpensively has opened up numerous new avenues for discovery and potential treatment. While these opportunities have been eagerly seized upon by research scientists, the integration of genomics into routine clinical care has faced some barriers. Now with support from Sydney Health ... Read more
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