Academic and Research Collaborative in Health (ARCH)

Partnership at a glance

• ARCH stands for the Academic and Research Collaborative in Health, an initiative built on strong industry partnerships to deliver better health and social care to Australians.
• La Trobe academics and researchers are embedded with ARCH partners in hospitals, community and residential aged care settings. There, they connect directly with patients, clients, clinicians and policy makers to understand problems firsthand and help solve them with consumers to ensure rapid translation of research into practice.
• The ARCH partnerships have significant impact in a range of ways, including co-producing research and its implementation with “end-users” such as clients, clinicians, care managers and policy makers.
• One example of a problem addressed by ARCH is hospital falls, which is a serious concern worldwide. ARCH partners have started international conversations about this and the collaboration is helping to reduce falls and the pain and distress they cause.

Case Study

From digital healthcare to new therapies for stroke and COVID-19, through to staff training on hospital safety, members of La Trobe’s Academic and Research Collaborative in Health (ARCH) initiative are responding to a broad range of challenges in partnership with industry.

When La Trobe’s Professor Meg Morris and her research team moved into their new office at Healthscope several years ago as part of the university’s industry partnership program, she asked: “What is the biggest problem that we can help solve here?”

The answer was unequivocal: falls cost the Australian healthcare system more than $500 million annually. But for organisations like Healthscope, which operates a network of private hospitals, and caring health professionals like Morris, it’s not just about reducing the cost of falls on the healthcare system, it’s about putting patients first. Hospital falls cause patients injury, delayed recovery, loss of confidence and pain.

Five years later, Morris and the team of researchers from the ARCH initiative have made significant breakthroughs by working with industry partner Healthscope to reduce hospital falls.

According to Morris, a physiotherapist and clinical researcher, the success of the falls project demonstrates the power of ARCH: linking La Trobe’s academics with clinicians, consumers, healthcare professionals and social care agencies creates powerful collaborations that solve healthcare problems.

ARCH’s La Trobe experts are embedded in a range of health and social care settings. Students reap the benefits, gaining real-world engagement with clinicians and patients to prepare them to become part of the future workforce.

“Historically, people would see researchers and university professors like me as belonging in the lab back on the university campus. They would do the studies, find answers and advise the partners what to implement,” says Morris. “But, of course, that type of hierarchical implementation doesn't work very well because, if you want to help the care recipients, it's critical that you work together from day one.