Professor Melissa Baysari
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Professor Melissa Baysari

PhD CPE FAIDH
Professor of Health Research
Sydney Nursing School
Phone
+612 8627 9245
Professor Melissa Baysari

Professor Melissa Baysari is a human factors researcher experienced in both quantitative and qualitative evaluations of health information technology. Her research to date has focused primarily on digital health to support medication management, with a particular focus on the design and evaluation of computerised decision support.

Melissa has published widely in the areas of medication safety, electronic prescribing and decision support and her research has resulted in a number of significant changes being made to electronic medical record systems, as well as to hospital policy and work practices. She has many ongoing collaborations with government, industry and health services, and has been is a Chief Investigator on eight NHMRC Partnership grants.

Melissa's main research interests include:

  • Understanding and improving the fit between clinicians and health technologies
  • Electronic medication management systems, electonic prescribing
  • Computerised decision support
  • Safety of digital health
  • Unintended consequences of digital health use/implementation
  • Human factors methods and approaches

Melissa is a research-only academic, but delivers many guest lectures to health and medicine students.

Current members of Melissa's team include:

Dr Ann Carrigan, Senior Research Fellow

Ms Henna Solanki, Senior Reseach Officer

Ms Julie Li, Reseach Officer

Ms Tamasha Jayawardena,Research Assistant

Dr Emma Tay, PhD Candidate

Ms Selvana Awad, PhD Candidate

Ms Nicki Newton, PhD Candidate

Mr Timothy Yu, PhD Candiate

  • Optimising clinical decision support to transform medication safety and reduce prescriber burden
  • Reducing inappropriate polypharmacy for older inpatients
  • Human factors and safety analysis methods in the design and redesign of electronic medication management systems
  • Evaluation of Real Time Prescription Monitoring in NSW
  • Evaluation of a tap on/tap off system in an Emergency Department
  • Evaluation and optimisation of Florence, a digital patient journey solution,Digital Health CRC Project
  • Optimising virtual care technologies between general practice and residential aged care: a Human Factors approach
  • Optimising medicine handover after discharge
  • Assessing downtime preparedness and the impact of a downtime on medication safety and operational performance

Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE)

Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health (FAIDH)

International Ergonomics Association (IEA) - Co-Chair of the Healthcare Ergonimics Technical Committee

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA) - Member of the Healthcare Ergonomics Special Interest Group

2021: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia's Kevin Povins award, for best paper at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia's annual conference.

2020:Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Alan Welford Award for best paper on a human factors and ergonomics topic published in a peer-reviewed journal. Paper titled ‘Delivering the right information to the right person at the right time to facilitate deprescribing in hospitals: A mixed-methods multi-site study to inform decision support design in Australia’

2019: Best paper award at Context Senstive Health Informatics (CSHI 2019), Lille France.

2018: Branko Cesnik Award for best academic/scientific paper at the Health Informatics Society of Australia’s annual Health Informatics Conference (HIC2018)

2017: Women and Leadership Australia scholarship ($3000) to attend theAccelerated Leadership Performance Program

2016: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia John Lane Award for a major systematic contribution to advancing the science of human factors and ergonomics and its application in Australia.

2016: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Alan Welford Award for best paper on a human factors and ergonomics topic published in a peer-reviewed journal. Paper titled ‘What are incident reports telling us? A comparative study at two Australian hospitals of medication errors identified at audit, detected by staff and reported to an incident system’

2013: One of the best papers of 2012 by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and appeared in the IMIA 2013 Yearbook:Westbrook JI, Reckmann M, Li L, Runciman WB, Burke R, Lo C,Baysari MT, Braithwaite J, Day RO. Effects of Two Commercial Electronic Prescribing Systems on Prescribing Error Rates in Hospital In-Patients: A Before and After Study. PLoS Med 2012, 9(1): e1001164

2012: One of the best papers of 2011 by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and appeared in the IMIA 2012 Yearbook:Taib IA, McIntosh AS, Caponecchia C, Baysari MT. A review of medical error taxonomies: A human factors perspective. Safety Science 2011 49; 607-615

2012: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Alan Welford Award for best paper on a human factors and ergonomics topic published in a peer-reviewed journal. Paper titled ‘The influence of computerized decision support on prescribing during ward-rounds: Are the decision makers targeted?

2012: St Vincent’s Health Australia quality award ‘Exceptional care: A culture of no harm’ for application ‘Transforming medication safety with information technology’.

2011: University of New South Wales Dean of Medicine’s Rising Star Award

2008: Best paper at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Annual Conference in Adelaide

2002: Dick Champion Prize awarded to the best empirical Honours thesis in the areas of learning and motivation. Thesis titled: Activity and self-starvation in the rat: effects of ambient temperature and nausea

E-Health and Health Care Delivery
Project titleResearch student
Patient Request for Imaging and the Desire for 'Proof of Wellness’: The Influence of Online Health Information on Imaging PracticesLizzie DE SILVA
Exploring clinicians' acceptance and use of hospital clinical decision support systems over timeNicki NEWTON
Towards the development of a novel tool to support evidence informed decision making in Speech PathologyKatherine SMITH

Publications

Selected Grants

2025

  • The general practice and residential aged care study of Telehealth augmented best-practice care exploring safety, quality, acceptability and sustainability: "The GRACE-Telehealth Study, Makeham M, Baysari M, Von Huben A, Tyagi V, Luscombe G, McCormack B, Chen T, Russell H, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)/Targeted Call for Research (TCR): Ensuring the quality and safety of telehealth 2023

2024

  • Development of an electronic frailty index to improve care of older people in hospital, Hilmer S, Srikanth V, Thillainadesan J, Masnoon N, Edwards D, Kouladjian-O'Donnell L, Fujita K, Etherton-Beer C, Blyth F, Rockwood K, Ferguson C, Baysari M, Sarkies M, Hubbard R, Department of Health and Aged Care (Federal - administered by NHMRC)/MRFF Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care Mission
  • The General Practice and Residential Aged Care Study of Virtual Care Models (The Grace-VC Study): Implementing safe, person-centred virtual care for residents, Makeham M, Baysari M, Luscombe G, McCormack B, Robinson F, Chen T, Russell H, Chua A, Department of Health and Aged Care (Federal - administered by NHMRC)/MRFF CRI 2023 Clinician Researchers: Applied Research in Health

2018 - ongoing: Member (Chair and A/Chair) of theNHMRC's Partnership Project Panel