Emergency departments are the frontline of health care, with one in seven Australians seeking help from a hospital emergency department every year. Our medical staff depend on research findings to help inform their responses to urgent patient needs.

Funding from Hearts and Minds Investments Limited helps to connect research and frontline staff. It supports Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s Green Light Institute, based on a concept unique in Australasia — to embed research infrastructure and training facilities entirely within an emergency department, enabling seamless implementation of new research findings into clinical practice at the bedside.

“The concept and vision behind the Green Light project has been made entirely possible through funding from Hearts and Minds. We’re so appreciative to have been chosen by Phil King and Regal Funds Management as their designated medical research organisation,” says Associate Professor Michael Dinh, Green Light Institute Clinical Director.

The Green Light Institute focuses on high impact acute medical conditions with significant public health ramifications like trauma care, stroke, acute cardiac conditions, mental health and sepsis management. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the need for research into even sharper focus, with research focusing on better treatments for COVID-19 and access to health care for members of the community in quarantine.

Supporting research today benefits patients now and whole communities in the future. Green Light Institute research coordinator, Saartje Berendsen Russell, says “On behalf of our patients and their families, as well as generations of future emergency clinical leaders, I would like to extend a big warm-hearted thank you for the generosity and shared vision of Hearts and Minds”.

HM1 spoke with Associate Professor Michael Dinh, Clinical Director at the RPA Green Light Institute as part of the impact video series and discussed the importance of emergency and trauma medicine research. You can watch the video below.