TRANSFORM - a patient centred approach to reducing healthcare fragmentation.

TRANSFORM is an innovative, new, 5 year venture aiming to find effective, and sustainable pathways to health care integration. It brings together experts in primary care and health services research from Monash and the University of Melbourne. We are committed to finding ways to make health less fragmented and more focussed on the needs of the patient. Funded by the Medical Research Future Fund, TRANSFORM will address gaps and inefficiencies in care that vulnerable patients experience as they move between primary, secondary and hospital care. The program has grown 15 years of similar initiatives, in particular the TROPHI initiative and the IMPACT centre of research excellence (web links below). Set in three regions of metropolitan Melbourne, consortia of health services, patients and clinicians will work with patients to find out where continuity of health care breaks down. And then design ways to address the problem. The TRANSFORM team will help focus their decision making and measure how Each consortium will work to co-design and then implement ways to overcome these obstacles to effective, efficient and integrated patient-centered care. There are a wealth of student research opportunities within TRANSFORM. Students will be able to shape their project to fit their own interests within the varied parts of TRANFORM. For example, Honours students could work with people living with specific chronic conditions to identify the touch-points that they face in trying to negotiate a complex and sometimes hostile health system. PhD students could gather multiple patient and provider perspectives to health care fragmentation. All could benefit from the data collected and partnerships generated in this innovative program of work. Our team based in the Department of General Practice at Monash University has a long history of supporting research students. Honours, Masters and PhD students working with us will gain from the experienced and personalised support within our team. In addition students can benefit from the targeted teaching and peer support of our acclaimed Graduate Research Group program. Top up scholarship funding is likely, but project dependent.