Emergency Medicine Foundation

14/10/2026

🎉Congratulations to EMF-funded researcher Kendall Williams, who has received one of three Best Research Abstract prizes at The University of Queensland's Critical Care Research Day!

Kendall, an emergency nurse researcher at Redland Hospital, was recognised for her work examining the clinical outcomes of patients who need an acute ED bed but are instead placed in overflow areas when a bed isn’t available.

Supported by EMF, the study compares clinical outcomes for patients streamed to acute overflow with those placed directly in acute beds, investigating patient deterioration and other aspects of care.

The research aims to build evidence to support safer monitoring and care for patients affected by access block and hospital capacity pressures.

A fantastic achievement and well-deserved recognition of nurse-led research on Emergency Nurses Day. Congratulations, Kendall. 👏

Metro South Health

13/10/2026

👏 It's great to see so many researchers connected with EMF contributing to the International Conference for Emergency Nurses (ICEN 2026) in Hobart this week - College of Emergency Nursing Australasia

From ED workforce wellbeing and delirium care to mass gatherings, clinical practice and research translation, the program brings together a wide range of work aimed at strengthening emergency care.

Wishing Professor Jamie Ranse, Dr Dr James Hughes, Dr Elizabeth Elder, Dr Grace Xu, Dr Barbara Zangerl and Professor Diana Egerton-Warburton OAM all the best for their presentations and sessions!

08/10/2026

🚁 How are sick and injured children transferred between hospitals across Queensland?

Across a state as large as Queensland, children and newborn babies may need to travel significant distances to access specialist care, by road ambulance, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.

But currently, there is no single statewide picture of how these transfers occur.

With funding from an EMF Jumpstart grant, Dr Ben Aston from LifeFlight is leading the Retrieval Epidemiology and Access in Children’s Healthcare (The REACH Study), bringing together data from retrieval and transport services across Queensland to understand how transfers vary across metropolitan, regional and remote areas.

By building the first comprehensive statewide picture of these transfers, the research aims to provide evidence to support service planning, workforce training and more equitable access to specialist care for Queensland children.

Congratulations to Dr Aston, the research team and collaborative partners.👏

07/10/2026

🤝 How can stronger collaboration across services improve emergency mental health care?

This Queensland Mental Health Week, we're highlighting EMF-supported research looking at how emergency, mental health, police and ambulance services can better learn and work together.

This scoping review builds on research exploring how EDs respond to people experiencing mental health crises who are involuntarily transported for care.

The review examined 65 studies from Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States to investigate the use of Communities of Practice - structured approaches to shared learning and collaboration across services - in emergency mental health care.

The review found:

🔹 Collaborative models such as co-responder teams and liaison services have shown benefits including improved coordination and patient flow.
🔹 Despite this, only one of the 65 studies explicitly evaluated a Community of Practice, with no sustained CoP structures identified.

The review highlights an opportunity to strengthen collaboration through shared learning, workforce development and interagency communication, and calls for further research into whether Communities of Practice could support more sustained improvements in emergency mental health care.

📖 Read the publication: https://doi.org/10.2147/oaem.s603253

Authors: Alan Clough, Veronica Graham, Janet Catterall and Richard Stone

04/10/2026

📢 The EMF office is closed today for the public holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday 6 October.

📩 If you need to get in touch, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

30/09/2026

This Liver Awareness Month, we're highlighting EMF-funded research providing a statewide picture of chronic liver disease in Queensland EDs🏥

What happens when patients with chronic liver disease present to the ED?

Which parts of Queensland see the greatest burden?

What factors drive healthcare utilisation and mortality?

Can we identify the highest-risk patients from the ED?

Led by Dr Akmez Latona, the study examined more than 23,000 chronic liver disease-related presentations across all public EDs in Queensland.

Researchers found that EDs across Queensland experienced an increasing number of presentations by patients with CLD that were associated with high disease burden and complications. A substantial proportion presented to non-metropolitan EDs. ED-initiated risk stratification and coordinated care models to improve outcomes for patients with cirrhosis require development and evaluation.

📖 Read the full study: https://doi.org/10.1111/1742-6723.70310

Authors: Akmez Latona, Katherine Stuart, Patricia Valery, Alan Ho, Biswadev Mitra West Moreton Health QCIF QIMR Berghofer Metro South Health

29/09/2026

👏 Congratulations to Brooke Charters on being awarded a Queensland Health Clinician Researcher Fellowship!

It's fantastic to see Brooke continuing to build on her work to improve paediatric cannula securement, research EMF has been proud to support from the original trial through to the KIDS translation study.

Well done Brooke, we're looking forward to seeing where this next stage of your research takes you!

For paediatric nurse Brooke, improving care for children starts with making one of the most common clinical procedures safer and less distressing. ❤️‍🩹

Brooke has been awarded a Queensland Health Clinician Researcher Fellowship to investigate how IV cannulas are secured in paediatric emergency care, with the goal of reducing failed cannulation attempts, painful procedures and treatment delays.

The fellowship is one of just 22 awarded across Queensland in Round 7. 👏

With dedicated research time each week, Brooke will work to embed evidence-based IV securement practices into emergency care and translate her findings into education, guidelines and system-level change.

“If this work can reduce even one repeat cannulation for a child in the Emergency Department, it’s worth it.”

28/09/2026

📢 The September EMF Research Newsletter is out now!

This edition brings together clinician-led research, emerging evidence from EMF-supported projects, insights for researchers and what’s coming up across EMF.

Inside this edition:

🔹 Discover the outcomes of Round 45 and Lucy Tripp’s research to improve emergency care for patients with palliative care needs at Gold Coast Health.

🔹 Professor Daniel Fatovich shares his perspective on responsible AI use in grant applications and review.

🔹Findings from the EMF-funded SuPAFlow study explore what’s driving access block and ambulance ramping, and why improving patient flow requires looking beyond the ED.

🔹 Plus, save the date for the ACEM & EMF Research Symposium 2027, returning to Brisbane on 24-25 February.

Also inside: highlights from the EMF & JTI Trauma Care Research Symposium, an opportunity to join the EMF Board and the latest EMF-funded publications.

📰 Read the September newsletter: https://app4.vision6.com.au/em/message/email/view.php?id=2004253&a=111266&k=UkWDgcRlrVj2BCAH3lYn8f3o9X4fnmQXkS14P-F8nNE

24/09/2026

💊 This World Pharmacists Day, we're highlighting the role emergency pharmacists can play in improving patient care and antimicrobial stewardship.

Around 1 in 10 hospitalised Australians have a penicillin allergy recorded in their medical record, yet 9 in 10 of these allergy labels are incorrect.

Funded through Round 45 of EMF's Queensland Research Program, Senior Pharmacist Shannon Finn from the RBWH Emergency and Trauma Centre is leading the iPEN-ED study to implement a new approach for patients with low-risk penicillin allergy labels who need antibiotics in the ED.

Using a validated risk assessment tool, eligible patients will receive a single dose of penicillin and be monitored for one hour. The study will explore whether this approach can be safely and practically incorporated into a busy Australian ED, helping more patients receive preferred first-line antibiotics when appropriate. 👏

Emergency pharmacists will play a key role in implementing the pathway, drawing on their expertise in medication safety, allergy assessment and antimicrobial stewardship.

The findings could help inform how the approach is expanded to other Queensland EDs.

EMF thanks the Queensland Government for funding the Queensland Research Program through Queensland Health.

📌 Learn more about EMF's Queensland Research Program and grant schemes: https://emergencyfoundation.org.au/grants/queensland/

Metro North Health

21/09/2026

What helps emergency medicine research move from evidence into practice?

EMF has commissioned a new research project - BERT (Barriers and Enablers to Research Translation in Queensland’s Emergency Care Sector) - led by Professor Clair Sullivan from the Queensland Digital Health Centre (QDHeC) exploring what helps and what gets in the way of translating emergency medicine research into practice across Queensland.

The multidisciplinary research team, including Dr Mahnaz Samadbeik, A/Prof Andrew Staib, Prof Gerben Keijzers, Prof Julia Crilly OAM and Dr Leanna Woods, will look at why some research leads to lasting changes in practice, while other findings are only partially adopted or have limited uptake.

Through environmental scanning, case studies and consultation with clinicians, health service leaders and other stakeholders, the team will identify the factors influencing research translation across Queensland’s public health system.

The findings will help inform EMF’s future funding, implementation and research translation approaches.

We’re looking forward to seeing what the research finds!