Director RCS
| Contact Campus | Off-Campus |
| Building | Rural Clinical School, Brickport Road, Burnie |
| Room Reference | 219 |
| Telephone | +61 3 6430 4564 |
| Fax | +61 3 6431 5670 |
| timothy.skinner@utas.edu.au |
Prof. Skinner is the Australasian Co-Editor of Rural and Remote Health online Journal.
Research Projects
Screening for Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip. Being born in a rural or remote area increases the risk of infants receiving a late diagnosis of hip problems. This project, funded by the Toowomba Outback awards is looking at using dynamic ultrasound scanning of new born infants to help rural services to more easily identify babies with hip dysplasia.
Care Planning. This study is looking at inter-disciplinary and cross boundary clinical information sharing in primary health care and asks: 'How do they work and what are the outcomes for clients with chronic conditions and their health care providers?' This project is funded by the Australian Primary Health Care Resarch Institute, with work being undertaken in two rural and two urban centres.
Mothers After Gestational Diabetes Australia (MAGDA) – this is an NHMRC partnership grant with state departments of health in Victoria and South Australia. This project is evaluating the impact of creating a register for Gestational Diabetes, and offering a diabetes prevention program to mothers 6 months after delivery.
Bush Fires CRC Project. In collaboration with the Psychology Department at UWA, we are funded by the CRC to investigate the impact of communications, such as leaflets about preparedness and warnings during an actual fire, on individual levels of preparedness and behaviour during actual bushfire emergencies
Hvidoere Study Group on Childhood Diabetes. This is an international group committed to performing high qulaity collaborative multicentre research in children and adolescents aimed at improving their diabetes care. This work is looking at psychosocial predictors of differences between centres outcomes of diabetes care, in collaboration with the Health Behavour in School Children (HBSC) WHO project.
Family Adolescents and Children's Teamwork Study (FACTS), suggest that family communication can be improved with beneficial effects on family interactions, quality of life and blood glucose control. FACTS is building on this work to determine if multicentre randomized trial of family diabetes program is effective in helping parents and teenagers negotiate the adolescents years.
Diabetes Education Self-Management; Ongoing and Newly Diagnosed, (DESMOND) is a project exploring how to most effectively deliver high quality self-management education to people with Type 2 Diabetes, from the moment of diagnosis onwards. Current projects are looking at the long term benefits of early education, the benefits of lay educators working with health professionals in diabetes education, the role of urine and glucose monitoring in self-management and the integration of ongoing education into primary care management of diabetes.
Predicting Usage of CPAP in Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (PUCOSA) – this is a project being undertaken in partnership with the Psychology Department of UWA, and the Western Australian Sleep Disorders Research Institute. In this project we are looking at what predicts individuals choice to trial CPAP for the treatment of their apnoea, what predicts their usage of their machines, and the impact of their apnoea on mental health and cognitive function.
Research Supervision
PhDs
Cindy Porter (Dietician) – is undertaking research on the experience and outcomes of diabetes during pregnancy for Aboriginal Australian women in Western Australia.
Melissa Barrett (Nurse) – is undertaking research into the benefits of providing people with type 2 diabetes with their actual risk for developing diabetes complications.
Susan Wearne (GP) – is undertaking research to understand the experience of distance supervision in general practice education, and how to optimise the quality of distance supervision for rural and remote GP trainees.
MD
Orlay Neylon (Paediatric Registrar) - is undertaking research to develop a system for early identification of young people with type 1 diabetes and their families who need extra support for managing the transition of adolescents and young adulthood.