Pain management experienceWho: Multi disciplinary healthcare team
Where: Pain Management Unit, Canberra Hospital, Australia
When: April 2007 - ongoing
Problem: Seeking a better framework to evaluate and continually improve the delivery of self-managed pain education.
DQ solution: DQ's knowledge wizard and program assessment tool (PAT©) provided a clear methodology for the team to review the strengths and weaknesses of their education program (results presented at 2008 national conference). Also, DQ has dramatically reduced the time taken to provide written summaries to referring doctors for education groups from weeks to hours. Winner 2008 consumer participation award in the Australian Capital Territory. |
Weaning pre-term babies off CPAPWho: Neonatologists
Where: 4 major neonatal intensive care units in Australia
When: June 2008 - ongoing
Problem: Seeking evidence on the most cost-effective method to wean pre-term babies (< 30 weeks) in intensive care off CPAP.
DQ solution: DQ's real time dynamically balancing randomisation engine, data quality checks at the point of data entry, and centralised monitoring allowed the team to achieve the high standards needed for this research. The team was able to take advantage of DQ's community builder to expand the hospitals involved. New hospitals were easily added by the team, with little to no training. DQ's real time data analysis and report generation allows the centralised team to produce newsletters, and present findings at various meetings. |
Hypoglycaemia and type 1 diabetesWho: Multi disciplinary healthcare team & carers of children with type 1 diabetes
Where: Paediatric Unit, Canberra Hospital, Australia
When: June 2008 - ongoing
Problem: Hypoglycaemic events for people with type 1 diabetes is a regular occurrence. Reducing the severity of such events would dramatically improve the lives of these people.
DQ solution: DQ's knowledge wizard demonstrated its breadth of functionality by addressing the team's requirements, including: 1) stratification within the randomisation process, 2) complex patient follow up in their homes based on 4 hypoglycaemic events or an 8 week period, and 3) real time analysis of variable length patient records with either the patient or the hypoglycaemic event as the focus. Overall, the results of the analysis support the research hypotheses. DQ's ability to produce real time excel data files for analysis in statistical packages meant the results could be produced in 1 day. |
Diabetes type 2Who: Australian Diabetes Educators Association and Division of General Practice
Where: Osborne General Practice Network, Perth, Western Australia
When: September 2008 - ongoing
Problem: Managing type 2 diabetes is critical to reducing the effects of diabetes complications. Self-managed education is a key to this success. The cost-effectiveness of self-managed education programs is difficult to test, and therefore mostly unknown.
DQ solution: In addition to an evaluation model using DQ's PAT, the team utilized DQ's extensive document management facility allowing access to different documents for particular sites. Furthermore, the team had its own branding, using the logo "D-Basics". Patient management relied on DQ's reporting services where a customised scheduler was built using DQ's report creation service (no programming involved) that accommodated not only appointments, but also the cross over design of the evaluation. |
Gastroenterology practiceWho: Gastroenterologists
Where: Gastroenterology practices in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia
When: December 2008 - ongoing
Problem: Gastroenterologists treat a variety of diseases and causes, each with their own special needs. Evaluation approaches that involve the collection of data are critical to quality improvement and new treatment/care discoveries. A major problem is the cost-effective use of databases to implement and manage these activities within and across practices.
DQ solution: DQ's knowledge wizard provided solutions for all the databases the team wanted to create, with no programming involved. They wanted each database to be separately managed, with different patients, and different access between users, although some users needed access to more than one set of data. Furthermore, each database required a different work flow, different decision support, different data collection, and the ability to manage versioning. The team is now looking at taking advantage of DQ's community builder to expand their communities to include international collaborators. The team is also looking to design new databases, and take on ad hoc research projects. |
Orthopaedic joint reviewWho: Orthopaedic surgeons
Where: Canberra Orthopaedic Group, Australia
When: March 2009 - ongoing
Problem: The orthopedic joint follow-up review process is inefficient and involves considerable time on the part of the surgeon and patient. A solution is needed that streamlines the process and provides opportunities to continuously improve the outcomes.
DQ solution: The orthopaedic group devised an efficient process for reviewing patients that involved patient logins, clinical interaction, and real time assessment calculations over the Internet. DQ was able to deliver exactly what was required through its knowledge wizard. The knowledge wizard's form creation module was able to handle the complex algorithms involved in radiological and clinical assessment. Furthermore, DQ's patient access process provided a secure and easy to use approach to involve patients from their homes.
Online client and professional communication |
Postnatal depressionWho: Multi disciplinary healthcare team
Where: Academic Unit of Internal Medicine, Canberra Hospital, Australia
When: May 2009 - ongoing
Problem: Postnatal depression can be a debilitating condition that affects the entire family. There is growing evidence that group interpersonal psychotherapy has a positive benefit on treating this condition. The type of evidence required to further support its benefits involves randomized controlled trials.
DQ solution: DQ’s easy to use knowledge wizard and pay for what you use approach provided the ideal cost-effective solution to conduct this type of research. With DQ’s knowledge wizard, the team was able to get the high standard of quality needed for a peer reviewed randomized control trial. The costs, however, of running the trial were at a minimum. No expensive licenses based on time that often leave the researcher needing to renew because recruitment is slow. DQ’s pay for what you use means your costs are directly related to your recruitment uptake.
Quality without the overheads |
Workforce well-beingWho: General workforce
Where: Australia
When: June 2009 - ongoing
Problem: The health of an organization's workforce is critical to its success. A considerable amount of an organization's resources are consumed by absenteeism, inferior productivity and poor team cohesion. Improving and maintaining a well workforce is the key, but how is the problem.
DQ solution: DQ’s flexible infrastructure has enabled it to provide solutions to virtually any work flow, evaluation or research requirements. Combining efforts with psychologists and psychiatrists, DQ is able to offer workplaces well-being programs to diagnosis and continuously improve your organization’s well-being, translating into better employee health, productivity and team cohesion, and less absenteeism, staff turnover and irresolvable conflicts. DQ’s “Free Apps” include generic solutions for well-being improvement, randomized control trials, client management and management of your health information. Signup to create your own community and customize your requirements using DQ’s knowledge wizard. |