health and safety
OCTOBER 2015
Monash University
Words Liz Porter
T
he 30-something woman is smiling
as she wheels herself into the kitchen
of her new inner-city apartment and
fetches food from the fridge. Getting
her own lunch is one of many acts of
independence now possible in her new
home – a purpose-built flat that is owned by the
state of Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission
(TAC) property trust and located on the ground floor
of a larger conventional residential development.
In a wheelchair since a road accident in her early
20s left her with a traumatic brain injury, she moved
in after a decade of living in her parents’ outersuburban house. Her new apartment has provided
her with a happy return to the neighbourhood
where she lived as a young adult, and the recovery
of some independence. Its integrated smart-home
technology allows her to use an iPad to contact staff
in a small on-site office, as well as to control blinds,
lighting and doors.
Her support worker is a regular visitor, to help
with showering and toileting. And on this day there
are two Monash University researchers in her kitchen:
architect Dr Kate Tregloan and occupational therapist
Libby Callaway. The two university lecturers are,
with her permission, videoing as she manoeuvres
between bench and stove, noting areas she can and
cannot reach or use in the way she would like.
Over time they will be interviewing her in further
detail about her life, her apartment, and any aids or
barriers to her autonomy posed by the apartment’s
design or its furniture.
This information is just one of many components
in a joint Monash School of Primary Health Care/
Monash Art, Design & Architecture (MADA) research
project assessing the design of new accommodation
models for people with a disability. Its aim is to
provide hard data that will help designers, funders
and users of future accessible housing.
It is also one of more than 100 projects already
completed by Monash researchers in collaboration
with the Institute for Safety, Compensation and
Research Recovery (ISCRR). ISCRR is a practical
research partnership between Monash and two
organisations, the TAC and WorkSafe Victoria – which
provide compensation for Victorians injured at work or
on the roads to improve their ability to return to work.
ISCRR’s brief is to translate research into accident
compensation and recovery into tangible, positive
outcomes for patients along with knowledge that can
be used to prevent injury, especially in the workplace.
Photo: eamon gallagher
Driving practice change
International studies show that only eight to 15 per
cent of research ever gets translated into actual
changes in policy or practice.
ISCRR, established six years ago, is tasked
with defying this poor record with research that
can drive direct improvements in the prevention of
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physical and psychological problems, as well as in
rehabilitation and compensation.
ISCRR has 20 staff who work in conjunction with
40 to 50 Monash researchers as well as research
translation staff in the TAC and WorkSafe Victoria.
The institute is supported by a $12 million to $13
million annual budget. In 2009 it opened with one
staff member – current CEO Professor Alex Collie –
and a pool of $25 million from WorkSafe Victoria and
TAC funds that the Victorian Government decided to
put into research to improve rehabilitation after, and
prevention of, injury and illness.
By early 2015, ISCRR had more than 30
neurotrauma projects underway. These include
studies of new drugs to improve bowel control in
people with spinal cord injury, policy interventions to
improve return-to-work processes for people injured
at work, and rehabilitation interventions for people
who experience behavioural difficulties following
traumatic brain injury.
From the beginning, ISCRR has jointly set
research policies with the TAC, WorkSafe Victoria
and Monash researchers. It also includes an industry
voice, with a current study on workplace health
and safety arising from some of Australia’s largest
employers wanting a measurement tool to tell them –
in advance – how safe, or otherwise, their worksites
are. Trade unions are also participating.
“This is academic research fully exposed to
public policy and all of its stakeholders,” Professor
Collie says.
The $112,000 Monash School of Primary Health
Care/MADA disability accommodation project is
an example of the ISCRR collaborative research
approach. In this case, Professor Collie explains,
Residential Independence Pty Ltd (RIPL) – the body
applying the research results – was also involved in
identifying the study’s focus and personnel.
RIPL is a TAC property trust set up to design
and build accessible housing.
Team action
ISCRR’s role was to bring this to fruition through
research, and establish and maintain links between
the partnering bodies. “It’s a different way of getting
research done,” Professor Collie says.
“In the past if we had put out a call for
applications on disability accommodation, we
might have received 10, 20 or 30 applications and
we would have had to choose one. But this time
we knew there were expert researchers in our
network at Monash. We were able to facilitate MADA
and the Monash School of Primary Health Care
working together; and with the TAC, we put that
program together.”
Since then, a follow-up assessment of the new
accommodation models has helped the funders of
future RIPL projects, as well as their designers, and
residents and their families.
GPS mapping of the resident ϊd