Kirsten McCaffery

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Kirsten McCaffery
Alma mater University of Edinburgh [ citation needed ]
University College London [ citation needed ]
Scientific career
Institutions Sydney School of Public Health
University of Sydney
Thesis Participation in bowel cancer screening : examination of psychosocial processes  (2000)

Kirsten McCaffery is a British-Australian public health researcher who is Principal Research Fellow and Director of Research at the Sydney School of Public Health. Her research considers the psychosocial aspects of over diagnosis in healthcare. She was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2020.

Contents

Early life and education

McCaffery earned her undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Edinburgh.[ citation needed ] She held various research positions, including working in Tanzania and at Cancer Research UK.[ citation needed ] She decided to do a PhD and pursue a career in research after working as a research associate in the research group of Jane Wardle. [1]

Research and career

McCaffery joined the University of Sydney as a Research Fellow and was eventually appointed Professor of Behavioural Science and Director of Research at the Sydney School of Public Health. [2] Her research considers health literacy and patient communications. [3] [4]

McCaffery founded the Sydney Health Literarcy Lab, which seeks to empower people in their health outcomes. [5] Through meta-analyses of health literature, McCaffery has shown that 80% of patients did not understand their home-care instructions 36 hours after leaving hospital, with 40 to 80% of information forgotten almost immediately. She is interested in whether removing the label of 'cancer' in low-risk, likely harmless, conditions could help reduce over-diagnosis. [6] [7]

In October 2020, McCaffery was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. [8] During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCaffery studied disparities in COVID-19 knowledge amongst the Australian population. [9] As with much of the world, those with the greatest burden of chronic disease are the most disadvantaged. [9] She found that these differences in COVID understanding lead to social inequalities in health outcomes.[ citation needed ] Alongside health literacy, McCaffery studied the pandemic-induced rise and fall of Telehealth, and how to improve the patient experience. [10]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telehealth</span> Health care by telecommunication

Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, conditions due to outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provide distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration. Telehealth could include two clinicians discussing a case over video conference; a robotic surgery occurring through remote access; physical therapy done via digital monitoring instruments, live feed and application combinations; tests being forwarded between facilities for interpretation by a higher specialist; home monitoring through continuous sending of patient health data; client to practitioner online conference; or even videophone interpretation during a consult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telenursing</span>

Telenursing refers to the use of information technology in the provision of nursing services whenever physical distance exists between patient and nurse, or between any number of nurses. As a field, it is part of telemedicine, and has many points of contacts with other medical and non-medical applications, such as telediagnosis, teleconsultation, and telemonitoring. The field, however, is still being developed as the information on telenursing isn't comprehensive enough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telepsychiatry</span> Mental-health care by telecommunication

Telepsychiatry or telemental health refers to the use of telecommunications technology to deliver psychiatric care remotely for people with mental health conditions. It is a branch of telemedicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rural health</span> Interdisciplinary study of health and health care delivery in rural environments

In medicine, rural health or rural medicine is the interdisciplinary study of health and health care delivery in rural environments. The concept of rural health incorporates many fields, including geography, midwifery, nursing, sociology, economics, and telehealth or telemedicine.

The doctor–patient relationship is a central part of health care and the practice of medicine. A doctor–patient relationship is formed when a doctor attends to a patient's medical needs and is usually through consent. This relationship is built on trust, respect, communication, and a common understanding of both the doctor and patients' sides. The trust aspect of this relationship goes is mutual: the doctor trusts the patient to reveal any information that may be relevant to the case, and in turn, the patient trusts the doctor to respect their privacy and not disclose this information to outside parties.

Karol Sikora is a British physician specialising in oncology, who has been described as a leading world authority on cancer. He was a founder and medical director of Rutherford Health, a company that provided proton therapy services, and is Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre.

Health communication is the study and practice of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient. The purpose of disseminating health information is to influence personal health choices by improving health literacy. Health communication is a unique niche in healthcare that allows professionals to use communication strategies to inform and influence decisions and actions of the public to improve health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doctor's visit</span>

A doctor's visit, also known as a physician office visit or a consultation, or a ward round in an inpatient care context, is a meeting between a patient with a physician to get health advice or treatment plan for a symptom or condition, most often at a professional health facility such as a doctor's office, clinic or hospital. According to a survey in the United States, a physician typically sees between 50 and 100 patients per week, but it may vary with medical specialty, but differs only little by community size such as metropolitan versus rural areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Braithwaite</span>

Jeffrey Braithwaite BA [UNE], DipIR, MIR [Syd], MBA [Macq], PhD [UNSW], FIML, FACHSM, FAAHMS, FFPHRCP [UK], FAcSS [UK], Hon FRACMA is an Australian professor, health services and systems researcher, writer and commentator. He is Founding Director of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Director of the Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, Australian Institute of Health Innovation; Professor of Health Systems Research, Macquarie University; Professor, Centre for Implementation of Hearing Research, Macquarie University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Remote patient monitoring</span>

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a technology to enable monitoring of patients outside of conventional clinical settings, such as in the home or in a remote area, which may increase access to care and decrease healthcare delivery costs. RPM involves the constant remote care of patients by their physicians, often to track physical symptoms, chronic conditions, or post-hospitalization rehab.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret McCartney</span> General practitioner, writer and broadcaster

Margaret Mary McCartney is a general practitioner, freelance writer and broadcaster based in Glasgow, Scotland. McCartney is a vocal advocate for evidence-based medicine. McCartney was a regular columnist at the British Medical Journal. She regularly writes articles for The Guardian and currently contributes to the BBC Radio 4 programme, Inside Health. She has written three popular science books, The Patient Paradox, The State of Medicine and Living with Dying. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCartney contributed content to academic journals and broadcasting platforms, personal blog, and social media to inform the public and dispel myths about coronavirus disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Long COVID</span> Long-term symptoms of COVID-19

Long COVID or long-haul COVID is a condition characterized by long-term health problems persisting or appearing after the typical recovery period of COVID-19. Although studies into long COVID are under way, as of May 2022 there is no consensus on the definition of the term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet-based treatments for trauma survivors</span>

Internet-based treatments for trauma survivors is a growing class of online treatments that allow for an individual who has experienced trauma to seek and receive treatment without needing to attend psychotherapy in person. The progressive movement to online resources and the need for more accessible mental health services has given rise to the creation of online-based interventions aimed to help those who have experienced traumatic events. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has shown to be particularly effective in the treatment of trauma-related disorders and adapting CBT to an online format has been shown to be as effective as in-person CBT in the treatment of trauma. Due to its positive outcomes, CBT-based internet treatment options for trauma survivors has been an expanding field in both research and clinical settings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public health mitigation of COVID-19</span> Measures to halt the spread of the respiratory disease among populations

Speed and scale are key to mitigation of COVID-19, due to the fat-tailed nature of pandemic risk and the exponential growth of COVID-19 infections. For mitigation to be effective, (a) chains of transmission must be broken as quickly as possible through screening and containment, (b) health care must be available to provide for the needs of those infected, and (c) contingencies must be in place to allow for effective rollout of (a) and (b).

Lidia Morawska is a Polish-Australian physicist and distinguished professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, at the Queensland University of Technology and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) at QUT. She is also co-director of the Australia-China Centre for Air Quality Science and Management, an adjunct professor at the Jinan University in China, and a Vice-Chancellor fellow at the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. Her work focuses on fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health, with a specific focus on atmospheric fine, ultrafine and nanoparticles. Since 2003, she expanded her interests to include also particles from human respiration activities and airborne infection transmission.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the telehealth industry</span> Impact of coronavirus on telehealth

Telehealth is the practice of providing healthcare via communication between the healthcare practitioner and the patient through electronic (virtual) methods such as telephones, smartphones, tablets, and computers. Telehealth permits patients to communicate with professionals via telephone, secure email, video chat, and in some instances secure messaging. Physicians may also utilize the telehealth systems for remote monitoring of patients at home. When the telehealth industry was founded, it was primarily used to provide services to underserved and rural area patients, enabled people to connect to specialists not located nearby. Telehealth was initially used predominantly for specialties such as cardiology, neurology, mental health, and dermatology. Telehealth has expanded to include many new applications such as physical therapy through digital monitoring tools and surgery done remotely using robots. The first major telehealth company, Teladoc, was founded in 2002 and since then the industry has grown to include companies such as Amwell, MeMD, and iCliniq.

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References

  1. Jane Rigney. "Five minutes with: Professor Kirsten McCaffery – Cancer Prevention Group Blog" . Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  2. "Expert - Kirsten McCaffery | Australian Academy of Science". www.science.org.au. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  3. "Professor Kirsten McCaffery". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
  4. "Professor Kirsten McCaffery – ASK" . Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  5. shlladmin. "Our Team". Sydney Health Literacy Lab. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  6. Nickel, Brooke; Moynihan, Ray; Barratt, Alexandra; Brito, Juan P.; McCaffery, Kirsten (12 August 2018). "Renaming low risk conditions labelled as cancer". BMJ. 362: k3322. doi:10.1136/bmj.k3322. ISSN   0959-8138. PMID   30100549. S2CID   51968638.
  7. McCaffery, Kirsten; Jansen, Jesse; Scherer, Laura; Thornton, Hazel; Hersch, Jolyn; Carter, Stacy; Barratt, Alexandra; Sheridan, Stacey; Moynihan, Ray; Waller, Jo; Brodersen, John (1 January 2016). "Walking the tightrope: communicating overdiagnosis in modern healthcare". Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive). 352: i348. doi:10.1136/bmj.i348. hdl: 2123/14516 . PMID   26850726. S2CID   7491871.
  8. "Academy elects 28 new Fellows". AAHMS - Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. 14 October 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  9. 1 2 McCaffery, Kirsten J.; Dodd, Rachael H.; Cvejic, Erin; Ayrek, Julie; Batcup, Carys; Isautier, Jennifer Mj; Copp, Tessa; Bonner, Carissa; Pickles, Kristen; Nickel, Brooke; Dakin, Thomas (9 December 2020). "Health literacy and disparities in COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours in Australia". Public Health Research & Practice. 30 (4). doi: 10.17061/phrp30342012 . ISSN   2204-2091. PMID   33294907.
  10. Isautier, Jennifer M. J.; McCaffery, Kirsten (2021). "Patients are a vital voice for the future of telehealth". Respirology. 26 (8): 729–730. doi: 10.1111/resp.14098 . ISSN   1440-1843. PMID   34148280.