Award shines spotlight on Springfield women’s health

In a sign of Mater’s commitment to providing the best healthcare to the people of Greater Springfield, Mater Health Economist, Dr Elizabeth Martin has been awarded special funding to identify when women should get extra help to recover from gynaecological surgery.

Dr Martin will use the Mater Research 2022 Strategic Grant for Outstanding Women to monitor how different women recover from gynaecological surgery at Mater Private Hospital Springfield and when patients need extra care to address issues such as pain, mental health and the confidence to return to normal activities when they leave hospital.

Mater Private Hospital Springfield conducts more than 400 surgeries each year to treat women’s gynaecological health issues including, hysterectomies, endometriosis, prolapse and cervical biopsies.

Dr Martin is a Value-Based Healthcare project officer with Mater Health and Adjunct Research Fellow with Mater Research who uses health economics and patient engagement to inform where health dollars would best be spent in hospitals.

She said her research would help doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals to organise their teams to ensure patients received the additional care they needed in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

“It’s important that we know women are healing well after treatment at Mater Private Hospital Springfield, and this project will allow women to give us information and feedback after their surgeries that clinicians can use to inform the care they provide,” Dr Martin said.

“I’m excited to receive this Strategic Grant for Outstanding Women and have the opportunity to take an in-dept look at how we can continue to provide the best gynaecological care to women in the Western Corridor and other parts of Queensland,” she said.

“The current economic climate of rising costs and high inflation has made my research more important because there are so many competing pressures for healthcare dollars.

“My research aims to find innovative ways to balance those competing interests while keeping patients front of mind.”

Mater Private Hospital Springfield Chief Operating Officer Paula Foley said it was important for healthcare services to stay agile to continually meet the needs of our community.

“While Mater is renowned for its surgical expertise in women’s health, we also know that research is a vital tool to keep us at the top of the game,” she said.

“We’re proud that our state-of-the-art theatres and equipment, coupled with our leading surgeons and nursing staff, offer our patients the highest quality of care from admission to discharge. We’re determined to keep doing that, and this research will help us understand how Mater can continue to improve how women recover from surgery in an affordable way.”

Mater Research Executive Director, Professor Maher Gandhi said the Strategic Grant for Outstanding Women was an important initiative to support women in the highly competitive medical research environment.

“The Mater Research Strategic Grant for Outstanding Women is designed to help our female researchers overcome the gender-based challenges that women researchers encounter in developing a long-term research career in the global medical research industry,” he said.

“This research also highlights our unique ability to collaborate with Mater Health to develop new methods and practices to improve the health of Queenslanders.”

Dr Martin has worked with several healthcare providers nationally and internationally to improve health service delivery and influence health policy. Her recommendations for preventing infection at caesarean sections has been adopted in New South Wales, Canada, and the UK.