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Dr Katie McGill
2022 Deeble Summer Scholar
Senior Clinical Psychologist & Suicide Prevention Research Lead, Hunter New England Local Health District
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Communicating and connecting with policy makers is not usually part of the early career researcher journey- even though working with policy makers is an effective way to bridge the space from discrete research studies to broad practice change. So, I was interested in the Deeble Institute Health Policy Research scholarship as soon as I saw it because I could see how it would provide me experiences that would not be part of my PhD journey otherwise.
My work is about how we can better support people who self-harm or who are suicidal- particularly how we can ensure that health services are able to provide good care. As the Compassion First report series led by Christine Morgan (National Suicide Prevention Advisor) outlines, for effective suicide prevention, there is a clear need for a compassionate, connected and person-centred service system response, but there are many reasons why this doesn’t always happen.
Better data is a key enabler that will support the shift to a compassionate and connected service system. This includes access to data that provides accurate estimates of how many people need help for self-harm or suicidality through to how we know whether the health care provided is helpful.
My Issues Brief outlines the weaknesses of available hospital-treated self-harm data and outlines how improvements in data accuracy, data linkage between surveillance and outcomes data and introduction of practice translation supports (such as quality indicators and feedback loops) would ensure the data could be used to improve care- and that these changes would form the foundation for a clinical quality register for hospital-treated self-harm.
The scholarship opportunity has been invaluable. The scholarship experiences have strengthened my capacity to communicate clearly about policy issues and potential solutions. It provided me with intensive mentoring about how to present the case for change using evidence. Meeting with policy makers allowed my ideas to get exposure with an audience that I would have been unlikely to meet with otherwise- and the discussions that occurred with these stakeholders allowed the ideas to improve. Would I recommend the Deeble Institute Health Policy Research Scholarship to other early career researchers interested in scaling the impact of their work? Absolutely and I look forward to using what I’ve learnt for years to come.
Follow Dr McGill on Twitter.
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The Deeble Summer Scholarship is proudly supported by HESTA.
