Elaine Burns

I am a PhD student in the Department of Surgery, supervised by Mr Omar Faiz, Dr Paul Aylin and Professor Ara Darzi. I am a surgical trainee undertaking a PhD to improve my research skills and facilitate my career as an academic surgeon.  My doctoral research focuses on examining variation in performance and quality in colorectal surgery within the National Health Service from routinely collected datasets.  Please contact me (e.burns@imperial.ac.uk) if you would like further information about the research.

Carina King

I am a PhD student with the Centre for Infection Prevention and Management. My project, under the supervision of Paul Aylin and Alison Holmes will explore novel uses of existing databases to enhance the surveillance capability of hospital acquired infections and help develop predictive models to identify individuals at risk. This exciting work will seek to exploit the potential benefits of electronic patient records for both operational systems and for medical research. 

Jo Murray

I am a postgraduate doctoral research student based in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, supervised by Dr Sonia Saxena and Dr Alex Bottle.  My main research area of interest is the epidemiology of paediatric infectious diseases.  My PhD focuses on the burden of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) among infants in the UK.  I will be using Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data to develop a retrospective birth cohort of infants and will explore trends in subsequent RSV-related hospital admissions and mortality among these infants.  A key component of this PhD is the development of methodology to link two national datasets of routinely collected patient records.  We aim to use personal identifiers to link records from babies admitted to neonatal units in England using the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit (NDAU) database, to HES records of subsequent healthcare utilisation.  I will then examine population-based neonatal outcomes beyond discharge from a neonatal unit, adjusting for case-mix factors. 

Will Palmer

The aim of my project, which I started in February 2008, is to evaluate the potential for improving patient safety by providing real-time information to clinicians using existing data sources. Specifically, I plan to use administrative data to report any incidents to specific medical and surgical specialty teams within Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust and to assess the effectiveness of this intervention.

Carmen Tsang

I am a part-time PhD student in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, supervised by Dr Paul Aylin and Professor Azeem Majeed. My doctoral research centres on how existing data from information systems can be used to improve patient safety in the primary care setting. Specifically, I am exploring the application of routinely collected (also known as administrative) data from both secondary care and general practice to develop an early detection method for adverse events in primary care. I am keen to hear the views of staff working in primary care about the use of routinely collected data for safety improvement. I will be carrying out informal consultations on the development of adverse event screens with GPs and colleagues in 2010. Please contact me (c.tsang@imperial.ac.uk) if you would like to be involved in the consultation process or would like further information about the research.

Research training

In July-August 2009, I undertook a 3 week research placement at the Department of Community Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong. During this time, I was involved in a study investigating the drivers behind preventable admissions among elderly patients in Hong Kong.