As part of NAIDOC Week, it’s timely to shine the spotlight on the array of research work underway at UCRH that focuses on Aboriginal Health.
Our Aboriginal Health team are engaged in a range of exciting research projects, two of which are related to the potential of virtual reality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health education.
Our ‘Consider Everyone’ project investigates the potential of virtual reality for inspiring health careers in the young people who attend the Baribunmani program.
Our ‘Virtual Reality and Racism’ project aims to consult with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about the appropriateness of engaging virtual reality to develop education packages to train medical and allied health students and professionals in the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the healthcare system.
A third project aims to document and evaluate our teaching and learning activities with medical and allied health students.
The VOICE project is a project that works with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and partner organisations to develop a survey tool to enable patients/consumers at primary health care services to provide feedback to the service. The tool – a Patient Reported Experience Measure (PREM) – is important as it allows consumers to have input into their service, with the aim of improving the quality of care and the experience people have when accessing care.
For the past two years the VOICE team, consisting of Emma Walke (Co-Lead), Megan Passey (Co Lead), Veronica Matthews, Amal Chakraborty and Tracey Piccoli have been travelling the length and breadth of Australia to its partnering services – Pirlangimpi (Tiwi Islands), Minjilang Clinic (TiwiIslands), Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (NT), CWAATSICH (Charleville), Inala (Brisbane), Bullinah (Ballina), Werin (Port Macquarie), Nunkuwarrin Yunti (Adelaide) – meeting with staff and community members to capture data from their experiences of care.
It’s never hard to travel to such beautiful places with communities who have welcomed us warmly!
Photo by James Yarema on Unsplash
