The Melbourne Children’s Campus is a global leader for longitudinal and life course data. Being one of the few centres worldwide with such extensive longitudinal cohort studies, we are positioned to address an array of questions central to early life health and development and its progression throughout the life span.
We are excited to launch the Department of Paediatrics Academy, a community of practice on a shared platform across University of Melbourne, RCH and MCRI, as well as collaborating organisations.
In the digital world we live in now, communities of practice can be highly effective where the working context can be complex and ambiguous. This presentation will highlight the functions of a community of practice, learn firsthand from Boston Children’s Hospital’s Academy, as well as local experience from RCH Centre of Health Analytics.
Never in the field of health was so much learned by so many in so few months. This Grand Round will recap the lessons from last year, take stock of where we are in February 2022, describe the complex situation with vaccines, and look to what the year might hold for the pandemic and children in Australia and countries around the world.
Through a significant contribution from the RCH Foundation, the Clinician Scientist Fellowship program supports doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to undertake research up to 2 days a week for up to 5 years. The Fellowship enables talented, clinically qualified professionals who have gained a higher research degree to pursue academic research alongside clinical practice.
The Melbourne Children’s Campus is seeing an increase in the number of clinical trials of gene therapies, especially in vivo viral vector therapies. With some of these therapies now approved by the TGA, there is an expectation by families that these therapies will be available at the Children’s.
We have a National Roadmap, which includes COVID-19 vaccine coverage targets for the easing of restrictions. But how do children and adolescents fit into this, with regard the direct and indirect effects of Delta on their health and well-being?
Mental Health is an issue of growing concern across the community. This has been amplified through the COVID-19 pandemic. Child mental health is also an ongoing priority for the Melbourne Children’s Campus (MCC) and its three partners. The RCH treats many vulnerable patient groups (e.g., children with chronic illness, neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosocial challenges) with elevated risk of psychological and mental health difficulties. This extends across our inpatient and outpatient services and into the community. Despite this, mental health services can be fragmented and difficult to access.
The NAIDOC Week Grand Round will highlight how Wadja Aboriginal Family Place has provided excellence and leadership in health services to Aboriginal Children and their families at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Wadja works collaboratively in partnership in the areas of child health assessments, advocacy, liaison, research, mental health, education, and family support to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people.
We are unleashing the power of data to improve child health. The first such Centre in Australia is a hive of potential and ideas, realising the shared vision of our campus partners. We are using data to advance and humanise many different perspectives of paediatric patient care.
Too often research evidence fails to inform practice or policy, and opportunities to improve children’s health and wellbeing are lost. The Melbourne Children’s Knowledge Translation and Research Impact Project, funded by the RCH Foundation, seeks to better understand campus KT and impact needs, and has developed and piloted strategies to advance knowledge translation, implementation and research impact.
