Active collaboration
Allied Health Collaboration
Connecting allied health professionals and partners to strengthen research capability and translate evidence into clinical practice.
About
WAHTN’s Allied Health collaboration supports research capability across allied health professions. It connects clinicians, health services, universities and partner organisations to strengthen research and its translation into clinical practice.
Allied health is the second largest professional group in Western Australia’s healthcare system. It covers a broad range of university-qualified professions with diagnostic, technical and therapeutic expertise, distinct from medicine, dentistry and nursing. These professionals help improve health and wellbeing in clinical and community settings.
Some allied health professions are registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Others are self-regulating, with professional peers setting and monitoring standards. Learn more through Allied Health Professions Australia and the Chief Allied Health Office.
Background
The Allied Health Platform formed in 2018 following concerns about limited opportunities for allied health professionals to undertake research and contribute to knowledge translation. The collaboration is led by representatives from WAHTN and its member organisations, including the WA Department of Health, Western Australian universities and private hospital providers.
Our focus
- Building research capability among allied health clinicians.
- Connecting researchers and clinical services across organisations.
- Supporting early-stage research and development of models of care.
- Creating opportunities for allied health professionals to contribute to research translation.
Activities and opportunities
Enabling Allied Health Capacity Grants
Since 2020, WAHTN and the WA Chief Allied Health Office have partnered through the Enabling Allied Health Capacity Grants Program to build research capacity across WA Health. The program supports early-stage research and time for research development, helping clinicians build capability to compete for national and state funding, including the Medical Research Future Fund and the Future Health Research and Innovation Fund. By 2025, the program had provided close to $1 million in grants.
In 2025, the program funded the WA Allied Health Advanced Practice Capacity Building Grants, supporting development and evaluation of new advanced practice models of care through research or quality improvement. It received 29 applications from nine allied health professions, demonstrating strong demand for support to develop allied health advanced practice models of care.
| Name | Hospital | Profession | Project Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nicole Irvine | PCH | Audiology | Evaluation of New Transformational (ENT) Audiology Advanced Practice service at PCH |
| Wayne Epton | RPH | Dietetics | Dietetic First Gastroenterology Clinic (DFGC) |
| Chanelle Curnuck | SCGH | Dietetics | Dietetic First Gastroenterology Clinic (DFGC) |
| Alison MacLean | SCGH | Social Work | Explore opportunity and current practices to develop an advanced practice role for social work in the specialist area of transplantation |
| Gemma Pattison | RPH | Speech Pathology | Development and evaluation of a multi-site Advanced Scope of practice Speech Pathology led first point of contact clinic for chronic cough |
| Elaine Newman | AKH | Physiotherapy | To propose a model of care for advanced vestibular practice in Physiotherapy at Armadale Health Service to address a service gap within the local area |
| Dr Michelle Kendell | FSH | Physiotherapy | TeleHealth in the home in the Neurosurgery Spinal Assessment Clinic: feasibility and impact of a new model of care serving the Great Southern Region |
| Sandra Dumas | FSH | Physiotherapy | Advanced Scope of Practice (ASP) Ear Nose and Throat Physiotherapy Role at FSFHG |
| Alanna Barwood | SCGH | Physiotherapy | Scoping the need and feasibility for an ASP Physiotherapy role within Urology at SCGOPHG |
| Lara Diepeveen | FSH | Physiotherapy | Gynaecology Physiotherapy Advanced Scope Role |
Country health research fellowships
Enabling Allied Health Capacity Grants allocated to WA Country Health Service directly support the WACHS Allied Health Novice Researcher Fellowships program. This joint initiative of WA Country Health Service, Curtin University and the Department of Health’s Chief Allied Health Office helps clinicians develop research skills through health service endorsed projects.
The 12-month fellowships provide half a day of protected research time each week, training from WACHS Research and Innovation, and mentoring from Curtin University’s School of Allied Health. The aim is to develop clinician researchers and strengthen innovation in rural and remote healthcare.
The Chief Allied Health Office provides funding through the Allied Health Research Capacity Grants, and Curtin University provides mentoring.
Meet the 2025 fellows
Julie Glynn, Senior Podiatrist
Can we afford to not have a statewide podiatry led high-risk foot ulcer telehealth service in WA?
Julie’s project explores a podiatry-led telehealth service for high-risk foot ulcers. Some WACHS locations have no podiatrist, limiting access to specialist ulcer care.
Working in the Great Southern, Julie wants to make specialist skills available to patients in other regions. Falling podiatry enrolments prompted her interest in using telehealth to help address rural and remote workforce gaps.
The fellowship supports her commitment to foot ulcer care and preserving patients’ mobility and quality of life. In her project profile, Julie highlights the serious consequences of major lower limb amputation, citing a four-year mortality rate of 50 per cent. The proposed service would help local staff access specialist guidance on neurovascular assessment, wound care, offloading and the reasons ulcers fail to heal or recur.
Nam-Anh Nguyen, Medicines Management Pharmacist
Enhancing the effectiveness of medication independent double checks to reduce patient harm
Nam-Anh’s project examines the ratio of independent double checks to preventable medication administration errors. It also considers other ways to reduce risk when double checking is unavailable, such as when a staff member is working alone.
The project is motivated by a commitment to helping staff work safely with medicines. The fellowship develops research and quality improvement skills to support meaningful, sustainable changes in pharmacy practice.
Nam-Anh hopes the work will strengthen community confidence in care by supporting continuous improvement and empowering staff to make care safer.
Related research funding
The Future Health Research and Innovation Fund is a Western Australian sovereign wealth fund established in 2020 with an investment of $1.8 billion. It supports health and medical research, innovation and commercialisation to improve the health and prosperity of Western Australians.
In 2024/25, more than $1.5 million supported research in allied health categories including audiology, clinical psychology, dietetics, exercise physiology and sonography. These FHRI Fund awards are separate from WAHTN’s capacity grants.
2024/25 FHRI Fund allied health awards
| Activity Title | FHRI Fund Program | Activity Lead | Entity Name | Amount Awarded | Allied health Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reinventing Audiology with RealSound | Innovative Solutions – Digital Health | Christofer Bester | Ear Science Institute Australia Inc | $500,000.00 | Audiology |
| Fathers’ Emotional Well-being: Exploring its Impact on Children’s Mental Health | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Berihun Dachew | Curtin University | $100,000.00 | Clinical Psychology |
| Psychotic Disorders: Fifteen-year outcomes and predictors of recovery | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Anna Waterreus | University of Western Australia | $100,000.00 | Clinical Psychology |
| Developing a Prevention Model for Youth Anxiety and Depression in Australia (PAD-YA) | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Getinet Yaya | Curtin University | $100,000.00 | Clinical Psychology |
| Unlocking a heart-healthy diet: the power of vegetables | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Lauren Blekkenhorst | Edith Cowan University | $100,000.00 | Dietetics |
| A picture is worth a thousand words: Understanding the experience of accessing exercise oncology care during cancer treatment for people urban vs. regional locations of Western Australia | FHRI Fund Consumer and Community Involvement Support – 2024/25 | Mary Kennedy | Edith Cowan University | $25,000.00 | Exercise Physiology |
| Standardising Clinical Oncology Referrals to Exercise | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Mary Kennedy | Edith Cowan University | $100,000.00 | Exercise Physiology |
| Reducing the hip and knee musculoskeletal pain burden | WA Near-miss Awards: Emerging Leaders (WANMA:EL) – 2024/25 Emerging Leaders | Myles Murphy | Edith Cowan University | $100,000.00 | Exercise Physiology |
| Connected Care: Advancing Maternal-Fetal Health with Telehealth Ultrasound Across Western Australia | Targeted Call – Health System Solution – 2024-25 | Jared Watts | WA Country Health Service | $466,466.00 | Sonography |
Sharing research through conferences
The National Allied Health Conference is held every two years, with a local organising committee in the host state. The WA Department of Health’s Chief Allied Health Office hosted the 15th conference at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre in August 2023.
The 16th conference, held in Adelaide in August 2025, brought together more than 800 allied health professionals in person and online. It offered workshops, opportunities to share ideas and professional connections.
The WA Chief Allied Health Office supported more than 50 WA Health employees who presented and hosted workshops during the three-day 2025 event.
2025 WA Health conference presentations
| First Name | Surname | Health Service | Presentation Title | Presentation Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloe | Benz | Perth Children’s Hospital | Measuring the Impact of a Physiotherapy Expansion in Paediatric Hospital in the Home | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Pippa | Corry | South Metropolitan Health Service | Allied Health Professionals – Management Skills Pathway | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Nichola | Foster | Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital | Trauma patient heterotopic ossification diagnosis is associated with increased hospital length of stay | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Jaqueline | Hunt | Perth Children’s Hospital | Perth Children’s Hospital ‘Play and Wait’ Strategy. Grant 2, Stage One: Consumer engagement activity trials | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Bec | Kevill | Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital | Development and implementation of a robust Allied Health credentialing framework in an Australian tertiary hospital | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Alison | Maclean | Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Health Care Group | Commencing a social work service in the kidney support clinic, facilitating alternative treatment and end of life discussions | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Katrine | Nehyba | Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals Group | Utilising Design Thinking to improve the onboarding and orientation experience of Allied Health staff joining Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospitals Group | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Melanie | Newton | Royal Perth Bentley Group | How improving psychological flexibility and resilience improve workforce stress, turnover intention and burnout | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Karen | Mitsche | Child and Adolescent Health Service | The SET and GO: A Parenting Self-Efficacy Tool for Gathering Outcomes of Developmental Interventions | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Mark | Petrich | Chief Allied Health Office – WA Health | Out of the primeval policy soup – the WA Health Allied Health workforce implementation plan | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Piers | Truter | South Metropolitan Health Service | Diverting patients from the ED to outpatients: Performance metrics and economic modelling of an advanced practice model of urgent care | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Emma | Wood | Child and Adolescent Health Service WA | Connection in community: Why understanding community-based care for children from ethnic minority backgrounds in Australia is essential | Oral Presentation (15 Minutes) |
| Susan | Alexander | Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospital Group | Optimising the uptake of mandatory workplace training by the Allied Health Workforce | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Cloe | Benz | Perth Children’s Hospital | HAPI to be home – A pilot physiotherapy outreach service supporting paediatric respiratory therapy across Western Australia | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Emily | Calton | Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospital | Impact of the dietetic research coordinator position in building clinician research capacity and university-hospital research collaborations | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Nichola | Foster | Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital | Evaluation of the accuracy of diagnostic coding and clinical documentation for traumatic heterotopic ossification diagnoses in Western Australian hospitals | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| David | Harrison | Fiona Stanley Hospital, South Metro Health | Sharing the Load: The Application of Communication Partner Training in a Rehabilitation Setting | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Sarah Jane | Hobson | Fiona Stanley Hospital | Evaluating features of short stay pathways in hip and knee arthroplasty at Fremantle Hospital | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Laura | Hughes | Fiona Stanley Hospital | Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) in head and neck free flap reconstruction; an interprofessional audit | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Elish | Kelly | Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospital Group | Tertiary hospital partnering with secondary hospitals to streamline NDIS processes to improve patient experience, outcomes and improve flow across sites | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Sumer | Kelly-Stout | Cockburn Health | Empowering Recovery: Why Allied Health Assistants are an integral body within Mental Health Services | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Juliana | Martins Pereira | East Metropolitan Health Services | United for Safety: Enhancing East Metropolitan Health Services’ Response to Family and Domestic Violence | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Elizabeth | Matthew | South Metropolitan Health Service | Reducing Portion-Controlled Food Waste in Fiona Stanley and Fremantle Hospital: A Food Rescue and Reuse Initative | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Annie | Robertson | Perth Children’s Hospital | Implementing an Allied Health led Feeding assessment and support team in a tertiary paediatric hospital | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Louise | Splatt | Royal Perth Bentley Group | Creating ‘HabitHack: Recovery tools in everyday life’ from a co-design perspective | Lightning Oral Presentations (5 minutes) |
| Kate | Bancroft | WA Country Health Service | Clinical supervision (via telehealth) for regionally based clinicians treating patients with complex lymphoedema | Display Poster Presentations |
| Hannah | Bres | Child and Adolescent Health Service | Establishing an interprofessional Allied Health education service – where to begin and lessons learnt | Display Poster Presentation |
| Bridget | Clark | King Edward Memorial Hospital | Postpartum Enoxaparin Use: Assessing Adherence, Challenges and Solutions | Display Poster Presentation |
| Louise | Cleary | Osborne Park Hospital | Seeing the Bigger Picture: Feasibility of TeleVFSS to support Geraldton Regional Hospital (GRH) from Osborne Park Hospital (OPH) Phase 1 and 2 | Display Poster Presentation |
| Loren | Geary | Fremantle Hospital | Introduction of a self-administered questionnaire reduces wait times, DNA’s and time to allied health intervention in the Fremantle Hospital Parkinson’s Service | Display Poster Presentation |
| Elish | Kelly | Fiona Stanley Fremantle Hospital Group | Key strategies implmented to reduce the impact of NDIS legislative changes with a Tertiary Hospital | Display Poster Presentation |
| Loan | Le | Chief Allied Health Office – WA Health | A policy journey – to the WA Allied Health research strategic framework update 2025 | Display Poster Presentation |
| Rebecca | Mondello | Perth Children’s Hospital | Behavioural Health Clinic – an Innovative Allied Health-Led Model Responding to Paediatric Emergency Department Social Behavioural Presentations | Display Poster Presentation |
| Christopher | Owens | Armadale Hospital | Streamlining Geriatric Care: Enhancing Rehabilitation Pathways with an Alternative Workforce in Aged Care | Display Poster Presentation |
| Merin | Paul | Fiona Stanley Hospital | Dementia and Elder Abuse: Challenges Faced by Hospital Social Workers | Display Poster Presentation |
| Laura | Quinnell | Fiona Stanley Hospital | Australia’s First Publicly Funded Women’s Only Mental Health Hospital. An Occupational Therapist Role with supporting women | Display Poster Presentation |
| Leia | Robinson | King Edward Memorial Hospital | The Re-imagining of a social worker’s response to Perinatal Grief and Loss at King Edward Memorial Hospital | Display Poster Presentation |
| Louise | Splatt | Royal Perth Bentley Group | More than music – finding the Rhythm2Recovery Drumbeat in Mental health care | Display Poster Presentation |
| Maria | Trajkov | Fiona Stanley Hospital, South Metropolitan Health Service | Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) in Head and Neck Free Flap Reconstruction; the patient experience | Display Poster Presentation |
| Piers | Truter | South Metropolitan Health Service | Diverting patients from the ED to outpatients: Patient and staff experiences and consumer perspectives on an advanced practice model of urgent care | Display Poster Presentation |
| Karen | Twyford | Child and Adolescent Health Service, WA | Nothing is impossible: An interprofessional allied health approach to find the way forward for an adolescent girl with syndrome of the trephined | Display Poster Presentation |
| Karen | Twyford | Child and Adolescent Health Service, WA | The impact of music therapy on functional outcomes for children and adolescents with an acquired brain injury in paediatric hospital settings: Initial program theories and causal mechanisms from a realist inquiry | Display Poster Presentation |
| Melinda | Williamson | Curtin University / Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital | An early ED allied health frailty service. A before and after study | Display Poster Presentation |
| Melinda | Williamson | Curtin University / Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital | From triage to departure: Older adults’ ED journey. A mixed methods study | Display Poster Presentation |
Get involved in allied health research
Contact WAHTN to discuss the collaboration, research opportunities or ways to participate.
Enquire about Allied Health