Griffith University patient safety nursing researcher Professor Wendy Chaboyer is one of two Australian researchers set to be inducted into the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.

Professor Chaboyer will join Queensland University of Technology’s Professor Elizabeth Beattie and 17 nursing researchers from the United States, Belgium and Canada to be recognised at the Sigma Theta Tau International’s (STTI) 26th International Nursing Research Congress in Puerto Rico in July.

Professor Chaboyer, who is originally from Canada and first became interested in researching ways to improve patient care while working as an intensive care nurse, said the honour recognises 15 years of her work in nursing research.

“To be recognised by our international community of nurses - I’m very proud of that,” she said.

“My colleague Professor Claire Rickard received it last year, so Australian researchers are starting to get a bit of a reputation for the good quality research we are doing at the international level.”

Professor Chaboyer’s research focuses on patient participation in patient safety activities from clinical handover to pressure injury prevention in a bid to promote active patient engagement in hospital care.

“We know from international work that when patients are more active in their care, they actually have better outcomes and there’s less adverse events,” she said.

Professor Chaboyer, from Griffith’s Centre for Health Practice Innovation, a part of the Menzies Health Institute Queensland, said her early research work focused on patients being transferred from intensive care to the ward.

“We found that a liaison nurse role that helped in that transition actually was beneficial for the patients, the staff and actually made the transfer more efficient,” she said.

“More recently, I’ve been working in the area of the nursing handover. I’ve developed standard operating protocols for how nurses can give handover at the patient’s bedside and involve the patient and the family of the patient.”

Professor Chaboyer is now involved in a large National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) study examining how patients can become more actively involved in pressure injury prevention care.

The study is being conducted with about 1600 patients spanning eight hospitals, in both the public and private sectors, across three Australian states.

Professor Chaboyer said if the study’s interventions are a success, it will suggest patients can play a simple but effective role in pressure injury prevention.

“We’ve come up with three simple things that patients can do in partnership with nurses,” she said.

“Just keep moving - it’s amazing how just even wriggling in bed makes a difference, eat a healthy diet and look after your skin,” she said.

“We’ve done preliminary research to show that patients were willing to participate and so if the study is positive then the next thing would be to try to ensure it’s got wide dissemination and uptake by hospitals both within Australia and internationally.

“If there’s simple things we can do to prevent pressure injuries then let’s use the simple things first.”

Nurses reported that the measures will also assist them in their work, Professor Chaboyer said.

“They said that having patients actually take a bit of responsibility in doing what they can do if they understand the importance of it, then it makes it easier for the patients to aid the nurses and it isn’t all the nurses’ responsibility - it’s a partnership with the patients.

“They were positive about how it could aid them in their clinical practice and really my research for many years has been about trying to come up with very simple kind of solutions for some of the issues and problems that we face as nurses.

“This seemed to be a simple solution that nurses saw as acceptable.”