Maternal Critical Care can lead projects or have a supporting role from preparing grant applications or tenders to conducting the project. Maternal Critical Care conducts or supports health evaluations, quality improvements or research using quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods.
Director of Maternal Critical Care, Dr Wendy Pollock, has extensive research experience in maternal critical illness in pregnant and postpartum women. Dr Pollock is active in a number of research projects, including:
- Australasian Maternity Outcomes Surveillance System (AMOSS) (www.amoss.com.au)
- Massive Transfusion Registry (www.torc.org.au/mtr)
Maternal Critical Care conducts research on behalf of organisations. We can also provide advice on aspects of the research cycle, including:
- Development of the research question
- Development of the study design (e.g. method, sample size, inclusion/exclusion criteria, recruitment and consenting processes, data gathering procedures, research protocols, data analysis plan, reporting and interpretation, and dissemination plan)
- Preparation and submission of Human Research and Ethics Committee application
- Implementation of the study, including data analyses
- Preparation and submission of conference papers, and manuscripts for peer-review journals.
Analysis and interpretation of data from existing data sets:
Vast amounts of data are routinely collected about pregnant women and birth and not utilised to their full potential. Yet these can be valuable for organisations in evaluating and planning their services for critically ill pregnant and postpartum women. Maternal Critical Care can advise on using existing data in your project. We can also advise on what new data items may need to be included in your project. Examples of existing data sets related to maternal critical illness include:
- Victorian Admitted Episodes Datasets (VAED)
- Perinatal Data Collection (Midwives data collection)
- Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD)
- ANZICS ICU admission dataset
Higher Degree Supervision
Dr Wendy Pollock has honorary appointments at two Melbourne universities and co-supervises three PhD candidates on topics related to severe acute maternal morbidity. Please contact Maternal Critical Care if you are interested in having Wendy involved in your higher degree supervision.