Westmead Applied Research Centre

The University of Sydney

Westmead Clinical School | Faculty of Medicine and Medicine

REN Building, Westmead Hospital

NSW 2145 Australia

T +61 2 8890 3125

E daniel.mcintyre@sydney.edu.au

sydney.edu.au

ABN 15 211 513 464

CRICOS 00026A

Mr Daniel McIntyre

Research student, Westmead Applied Research Centre

In association with Professor Clara Chow MBBS PhD FRACP (Professor of Medicine, University

of Sydney, Academic Director, Westmead Applied Research Centre, Cardiologist Westmead

Hospital) and Dr Aravinda Thiagalingam MBBS PhD FRACP (Senior Clinical Lecturer, University

of Sydney, Cardiologist Westmead Hospital and IT lead Westmead hospital)

10 August 2018

Empower Your Ideas Submission

Microsoft Australia

Dear Microsoft Australia,

We would like to pitch an idea we have to improve the health of the patient population in Western Sydney. Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of death in Australia. There are 4.2 million Australians affected by CVD, and the major risk factors for CVD are the largest contributors to global disease burden. This has a significant impact on the healthcare system. In 2015-16, 11% of hospitalisations and primary care presentations in Australia were CVD related. Attending these appointments is important. However, patients often spend more time waiting for their physician than receiving care. A 2017 study in an outpatient clinic reported patients waited an average of 41 minutes for an 18-minute consultation. Whilst this time spent waiting is inconvenient and frustrating, it also presents an opportunity to provide patients with education on CVD their doctor doesn’t have time to deliver. This has the potential to increase satisfaction with healthcare and improve health. Idea: We have designed a randomised controlled trial that will examine the impact of targeted, evidence-based education delivered in the waiting room on patient satisfaction with clinic, motivation to change behaviour and actual health-behaviours. Intervention: The intervention we intend to deliver is a series of CVD-focused educational videos that

have met criteria for quality of delivery and content by clinicians and consumers. This will

be provided to patients on tablets in the Rapid Access Cardiology Waiting room at

Westmead Hospital.

The videos will be delivered to participants in a semi-personalised format, ensuring that

the content is of appropriate health literacy level, language and on topics of interest. We

have already engaged a number of WSLHD and University of Sydney staff in an expert

reviewers panel to initiate the process of content selection and optimisation and are now

in the process of performing a consumer review.

The intervention intends to demonstrate to patients that treating physicians recognise the

patient’s time is valuable and have attempted to improve their experience. The

intervention will also utilise existing health system resources (staff and clinic space) to

maximise efficiency and optimise patient outcome. Patient education is becoming

increasingly recognised as a critical component of health delivery and essential for new

paradigms such as shared decision making models. This could have positive flow on

effects on patient engagement with clinicians and the health system.

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How can you empower us?

We believe that Microsoft Australia is perfectly poised to assist us in terms of both content

development and the optimisation of the platform we are using to deliver the videos. In

addition, we are currently trying to source tablets that could be used to deliver the

intervention to patients. Assistance in purchasing these tablets would allow us to reach

more people with this intervention both immediately and into the future.

When can we deliver?

We have already submitted ethics approval for the study, and will be beginning the trial in

the next month. To effectively power the study so that we can analyse the data and

understand the impact of the intervention, we need to run the trial over 6 months.

Sincere thanks for your time in reading and evaluating this submission,

Daniel McIntyre, Clara Chow and Aravinda Thiaglaingam