The role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Liaison Officers in acute health care

This is an observational study and will occur in five phases. Phase 1: Establishment Phase The research will be established in three tertiary hospitals in three states (South Australia, New South Wales and Northern Territory) in Australia. Establishment will involve ethics and governance applications, recruitment of staff and formalising connections with sites and key stakeholders for this work. A Project Steering Committee (PSC), composed of key stakeholders for this work , will be developed to provide direction and advice to the project team and will play a key role in the modification of data collection tools, data analysis, synthesis of findings and the translation and dissemination of findings. Phase 2: Yarning Phase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers and liaison officers working at the three sites will be invited to participate in a yarning session with the site-specific researcher about their experiences working in their role. Yarns will take 30 minutes to one hour, depending on how much the participant decides to share about their working experience(s). Phase 3: Dadirri and photovoice phase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients in hospitals in the three sites will be invited to participate in a Dadirri (deep listening) session with the site based researcher about their experience in the hospital and the hospital system more widely. They will also be asked to take photos of their experience in hospital. Dadirri is a deep listening, Indigenous methodology based on traditional forms of deep listening. Dadirri sessions will take 30 minutes to one hour to complete, depending on how much the participant decides to share about their experience(s). Phase 4: Patient Journey Phase Patient Journey Mapping methodology will be adapted to incorporate quality indicators for acute health care and will be used to identify both issues in and solutions for a patient’s journey through the acute health care system. Patients from Phase 3 will also be invited to participate in this Phase (however some participants in Phase 4 may not have participated in Phase 3). Phase 5: Survey and semi-structured interview phase Health professionals and managers working at the three sites will be invited to participate in an online, quantitative survey about their experiences working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Liaison Officers. The survey will take 20 to 30 minutes to complete, depending on how descriptive participants are in their responses to the survey. Participants will be offered the option to also participate in a semi-structured interview about their experiences. Response to additional queries that do not fit in the text above: --Please note there is no set time during which researchers will observe participants. Observation is only during the time researchers have with participants (eg the yarning or Dadirri session). --As stated above, some of the participants in Phase 4 may be the same as those in Phase 3. However some may also be different. The participants in Phases 2 and 5 are completely independent from each other and the other phases.