The AusHSI-JTI partnership: An epidemiologist, statistician, trauma surgeon and health economist walked into a bar….

By Professor Kirsten Vallmuur

While it sounds like the start of a joke, this partnership is more a flash of genius.  It harnesses the expertise of one of Australia’s leading health services research centres, AusHSI, with Australia’s newest clinical-academic trauma institute, the Jamieson Trauma Institute (JTI). The partnership is supported with backing from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission, Metro North Health and QUT.

JTI is the first Institute established as part of the Metro North 2032 strategy with a mission to transform trauma care in Queensland. From minor injury to catastrophic trauma, JTI aims to improve injured patient outcomes, reduce mortality and reduce the impact on the health system of injury-related presentations across the spectrum.  Injury accounts for almost 1 in 4 emergency department presentations in Queensland and has a hospitalisation rate of 2,492 per 100,000 Queenslanders.

In under five years of operation, JTI has established itself as the central trauma institute in Queensland. It has a strong ethos of collaboration, working with clinical, academic and industry partners to generate new knowledge, and translating this into meaningful outcomes for consumers, clinicians, and the health system.  JTI’s vision is to create value-based, evidence-informed systems and technological innovations to reduce the multifaceted impact of trauma. The purpose of JTI is to improve the quality, value and equity of trauma care and prevention initiatives. This is achieved through a person-centred focus, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral partnerships, sustainable implementation, innovative approaches that challenge the status quo, and capacity building across the continuum of care.  Central to this success are the partnerships JTI has with academic partners such as AusHSI, whereby staff are jointly appointed, students are co-supervised, and clinicians are mentored to produce high quality outputs.

Some of the key data linkage projects being driven by the JTI-AusHSI team include:

• a study examining patient journeys, treatment and outcomes after suffering an injury sustained in a transport crash or a work-related incident
• a study examining community opioid use after hospitalisation for an injury
• an examination of the performance of the major trauma bypass guidelines and impact on patient outcomes and costs
• an evaluation of the implementation of an innovative specialist led multidisciplinary trauma admitting service
• the development of an injury-specific index of remoteness to acute and rehabilitation care
• a program of work examining consumer product-related injuries and opportunities for injury prevention

In an effort to communicate a clear vision of the incredible opportunities for trauma data to improve trauma management and prevention, the JTI/AusHSI team worked closely with QUT’s film and animation team to produce a film, released in early 2022, that examined the role that healthcare data analytics played in the patient journey. It illustrated the importance of this process as a predictive tool that can actually help improve efficiencies and outcomes for the patients’ quality of life.  This film lays the foundation for JTI’s future work program and provides a fascinating glimpse into the enormous potential for trauma systems worldwide in the era of digital health, both now and in the future.