Developed by a previous initiative of the VCCC Alliance – the Nurse-Led Research Hub, the Essential Research Skills for Clinical Nurses is available on Melbourne University’s Mobile Learning Unit and the Centre for Cancer Education. This course is for clinical nurses who want to learn new or strengthen essential research skills. It introduces the fundamental concepts of what each nurse needs to know to influence and contribute to evidence-informed practice change.
We've also developed a repository of webinars and resources to support and build skills to change practice and engage in research activity. Visit Centre for Cancer Education and search: Nursing research.
Current examples of research being driven by members of the VCCC Alliance Cancer Nursing program include:
In collaboration with the University of Melbourne and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the VCCC Alliance Cancer Nursing program has contributed to the development and testing of the NEAT. The NEAT is a co-designed clinical tool enabling nurses to rapidly identify and navigate people at risk of poor cancer outcomes due to social determinant of health needs, to the support and interventions they need. Tested and revised through a series of competitively funded research project, cancer nurses and people affected by cancer have reported the NEAT to be highly acceptable and appropriate, with potential to improve patient outcomes. Over time, data from the NEAT could contribute to a comprehensive standardised data set, allowing the consideration of cancer outcomes by the presence or absence of social determinants of health.
PANConnect (Patient and Nurse Connect) is a nurse-led intervention that provides pancreatic cancer patients with access to timely pain and symptom management. The PANConnect model of care was codesigned by patients and carers with a lived experience of pancreatic cancer and multidisciplinary cancer health professionals involved in their care. Having demonstrated feasibility of the intervention in partnership with the Cancer Centre at Bendigo Health, the PANConnect team are conducting a randomised controlled trial to test whether adding PANConnect to usual care improves pain and symptom management among patients with pancreatic cancer, compared to usual care alone. They are also assessing whether PANConnect improves patient and carer emotional distress, unmet needs, financial wellbeing, and reduces health service use.
