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Abstract

Embracing the concept of �translation to practice� for nursing researchers and clinicians can yield positive outcomes to our consumers, but getting runs on the board is not always easy to start with. This keynote raises questions and provides some solutions to lead and develop a research culture in health services from an Australian rural, regional and metropolitan perspective. In the health district where this keynote draws from, quality assurance projects led by nurses and midwives are now a commonly accepted expectation. A number of key university and health district innovations will be described to enable a research and quality assurance culture to emerge. One innovation example has been to align clinical roles and service intentions to senior nursing roles to nurture and encourage projects that directly affect patient outcomes to materialise. This paper discusses a model of nurse led project development in direct consultation with nurses in mental health, acute care and ambulatory care. The paper outlines the strategic, operational and interpersonal processes involved in establishing a nurse led research facility to promote and support nurses in a variety of roles. A number of collaborative projects will be presented to create an understanding of the nurse researcher�s role in the leadership, conception, development, implementation and evaluation of the projects described when building a research culture.

Biography

Anthony Tony O’Brien is a Registered Nurse (mental health and general nursing) with extensive clinical experience in mental health community case management, acute mental health intake assessment, family therapy and aged care across rural, regional and metropolitan settings. He has held clinical roles as a Registered Nurse throughout his academic career. As an academic, he has provided curriculum consultation to nursing groups and universities in Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Brunei and Singapore; including curriculum review and development workshops. Over the last 25 years he has taught into mental health promotion, general nursing, research and undergraduate and postgraduate courses in six different universities. He is currently the Discipline Head of Nursing and the Post Graduate Director of course work programs at the University of Newcastle, School of Nursing and Midwifery. A few career highlights include establishing the clinical master’s mental health program at Massey University in New Zealand in the late 90s. In 2006, he successfully prepared the National University of Singapore Bachelor of Science (BSc) Nursing for accreditation with the Singapore Nursing Board. At NUS, he helped to design the state of the art simulation labs in the clinical science building contiguous to the National University Hospital and at SCU he established the Coffs Harbour campus and the Port Macquarie campuses. He has published over 171 reports, monographs, book chapters and journal articles (83) combined; and presented more than 62 invited, plenary or keynote conference presentations.

Email: tony.obrien@newcastle.edu.au