PRMs Collaborative Conversation Series - Phillipa van Essen

Phillipa Van Essen

Philli­pa van Essen
Clin­i­cal Researcher

Affil­i­a­tion: South­ern Ade­laide Local Health Net­work, Flinders Med­ical Centre

Philli­pa is a clin­i­cal researcher at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre, Plas­tic and Recon­struc­tive Surgery.

Q&A with Phillipa

What inter­est­ed you about patient report­ed mea­sures research and/​or projects?

“I’m inter­est­ed in report­ing the patient’s expe­ri­ence along­side the clin­i­cal out­come. To me these go hand in hand when mea­sur­ing the suc­cess of any treat­ment. By enabling patients to record and report their treat­ment out­comes we can tai­lor and refine our clin­i­cal practice.”

What is your biggest achieve­ment in rela­tion to patient report­ed mea­sures research, or the appli­ca­tion of research into practice?

“Con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment and ongo­ing func­tion­ing of both the Breast Recon­struc­tion Data­base and Hand Surgery Out­comes Data­base with­in the Plas­tic and Recon­struc­tive Surgery Unit at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre are two of my biggest achieve­ments. These ini­tia­tives link clin­i­cal out­comes with PRMs which are then inte­grat­ed into the patient med­ical record. The suc­cess of these con­tin­u­ous improve­ment projects relies on the con­tri­bu­tions of many people.

  • Deek RP, Lee IOK, van Essen P, Crit­ten­den T, Dean NR. Pre­dict­ed ver­sus actu­al com­pli­ca­tions in Aus­tralian women under­go­ing post-mas­tec­to­my breast recon­struc­tion: a ret­ro­spec­tive cohort study using the BRA Score tool. JPRAS 2021: 74(12), 3324 – 3334
  • van Essen P, Keil­lor N, Long R, Dean N. Sur­geon-dri­ven pre­op­er­a­tive psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion of plas­tic surgery patients. Aust. J Plas­tic Surgery 2021: 4(2), 85 – 92
  • Crit­ten­den T, Wat­son DI, Rat­cliffe J, Grif­fin PA, Dean NR, AFE­SA research group. Does breast reduc­tion surgery improve health-relat­ed qual­i­ty of life? A prospec­tive cohort study in Aus­tralian women. BMJ open 2020: 10 (2), e031804”

How do you approach col­lab­o­ra­tion with con­sumers, car­ers and com­mu­ni­ty? Or how do think we can work togeth­er to keep mak­ing advance­ments in this space?

“Work­ing with con­sumers is an impor­tant part of the process. I’m involved in Con­sumer Group Meet­ings for both the Breast Recon­struc­tion and Hand Surgery patient groups. These are a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear direct­ly from patients about their experiences.”

Con­tact Phillipa

Email: phillipa.​vanessen@​sa.​gov.​au

View oth­er pro­files in the PRMs Col­lab­o­ra­tive Con­ver­sa­tion Series.