Clinical Trials Research

AIROPLANE: Air or Oxygen for Preterm Infants: An Embedded Trial

What is it?

The AIROPLANE Trial compares two different oxygen concentrations to help support a baby's breathing in the first few minutes after birth. The trial assesses whether either approach leads to babies having less need for later breathing support, oxygen treatment or less time in hospital.

The hospitals taking part in the AIROPLANE Trial will be allocated to use an initial oxygen concentration of either 21% or 30% for a period of approximately 12 months. After this time, the hospital will then change to using the alternative oxygen concentration for a similar period of time.

Safety measures have been built into the study design to ensure that every AIROPLANE baby always receives a safe level of oxygen. Should additional care be needed at any time this will always be provided immediately.

Who do I speak to?

This trial has been initiated out of Murdoch Children's Research Institute and you can contact the AIROPLANE trial team AIROPLANE.Trial@mcri.edu.au 

Our local Principal Investigator is Dr Mark Norden, Director of Women's and Childrens Services.

Where do I find more information?

See the AIROPLANE Trial Website

ARROW Trial – Assessing the Reduction of Recurrent admissions with OM-85 for preschool Wheeze

What is it?
Acute wheezing illnesses present a huge health and economic burden and are the most common reason that preschool aged children are admitted to hospital in Australia. Current strategies to prevent hospital admissions due to preschool wheeze are ineffective, and parents and paediatricians identify developing effective treatments to prevent hospital admission as a research priority.

OM-85 is an orally administered bacterial lysate that stimulates immune responses associated with defence against viral infections and reduces the excessive inflammation of the respiratory mucosa associated with wheezing episodes.

This large multi-centre trial has been funded through NHMRC and has leveraged the Children’s Inpatient Research Collaborative of Australia and New Zealand (CIRCAN): a team that includes clinicians from 35 hospitals across Australasia. AWH is a recruitment site for the trial and patients that meet the inclusion criteria are offered the opportunity to join the study.

Who do I speak to?

This trial has been initiated out of Deakin University and you can contact the ARROW trial team at arrowtrial@deakin.edu.au
Our local Principal Investigator is Dr Mark Norden, Director of Women's and Childrens Services.

Where do I find more information?

The ARROW Trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (Registration number: ACTRN12620001370998p).

See the ARROW trial website

See Border Mail article

A Phase 3, Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Covariate-Adjusted Response-Adaptive Randomised Trial to Determine Optimal Early Mobility Training after Stroke (AVERT DOSE)

What is it?
An adaptive clinical trial design to evaluate a wide variety of mobility training after stroke. Fifty hospitals in seven countries (Australia, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Brazil, Singapore) are expected to participate. The study hopes to determine the optimal early mobility intervention for patients with mild and moderate ischemic stroke.

Who do I speak to?

This trial has been initiated out of the Florey Institute, and our local Principal Investigator is Vanessa Crosby.

Where do I find more information?

Further trial information can be found on twitter: @AVERTDOSEtrial. 

Also see the summary provided in the International Journal of Stroke

i-HEART Trial – Implementation of HEArt failure guidelines in Regional AusTralia

What is it?

A stepped-wedge randomised controlled trial to explore the improved implementation of heart failure guidelines, using telehealth to increase access to specialist services in regional health services.

The study has the potential to keep patients out of hospital and improve outcomes for regional heart failure patients.

Who do I speak to?

This trial has been initiated out of Deakin University and you can contact the iHEART trial team lead Andrea Driscoll on andrea.driscoll@deakin.edu.au.

Our local Principal Investigator is Associate Professor and Cardiologist David Prior.

Where do I find more information?

The i-HEART Trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (Registration number: ACTRN12621001353886.

Identifying and addressing barriers and enablers to implementing best-practice cardiac rehabilitation: the Quality Improvement in Cardiac Rehabilitation (QUICR) Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial 

What is it?

The purpose is to investigate whether cardiac rehabilitation program sites participating in a data-driven collaborative quality improvement intervention (QUality Improvement in Cardiac Rehabilitation (QUICR)) delivered over 12 months: 1) increase cardiac rehabilitation program completion, 2) reduce unplanned hospitalisations and associated length of stay and ED presentations, 3) improve the proportion of patients receiving guideline-indicated cardiac rehabilitation using national and international benchmarks, and 4) improve patient outcomes at program completion compared to a no-intervention control group. 

Who do I speak to?

This study has been approved by the Northern Sydney Local Health District HREC (2023/ETH01093). Questions about the project can be directed to NSLHD-Research@health.nsw.gov.au

The local principal investigator is Ivy Biacsi, Cardiac Rehabilitation Coordinator, AWH

Where do I find more information?

Monash University projects

SWIFT: Symptom monitoring With Feedback Trial

What is it?

The study is about the side-effects experienced by patients receiving haemodialysis for kidney failure and hopes to further understand the impact this treatment has on their quality of life. The SWIFT trial aims to explore if symptom monitoring with feedback to nurses, kidney doctors and patients, improves health-related quality of life. SWIFT will also test if collecting information about symptoms with a tablet computer is cost effective.

Who do I speak to?

This trial has been initiated out of the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, and you can contact the study team here swift@anzdata.org.au.

Our local Principal Investigator is Shiree Panozzo, the Nurse Unit Manager of the AWH Dialysis Unit.

Where do I find more information?

The SWIFT Trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (Registration number: ACTRN12620001061921.

More information is available on the SWIFT page on the ANZDATA website

Using disinvestment to investigate the effectiveness of mobilisation alarms in a stepped-wedge randomised trial design in tertiary hospitals (Control site)

What is it?

The aim of the study is examine the use of mobilisation alarms as a strategy to prevent falls in hospitals in Australia, with a view to removing the falls alarms from some of the study sites and understand the impact of this. Albury Wodonga Health is in the control arm of this study, meaning no change to practice is currently happening regarding falls alarms, instead we are auditing their use.

Who do I speak to?

This study has been initiated out of the School of Primary and Allied Health Care & National Centre for Healthy Ageing, Monash University and is funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Government. Grant number: APP1186185.

Our local Principal Investigator is Dr Marina van Leeuwen, UNSW and AWH Research Coordinator.

Where do I find more information?

See this publication on the study:

Haines, T. P., Botti, M., Brusco, N., O'Brien, L., Redley, B., Bowles, K. A., Hutchinson, A., Mitchell, D., Jellett, J., Steen, K., Boyd, L., Webb-St Mart, M., Raymond, M., Hunter, P., Russo, P., Bonnici, R., Pu, D., Sevenhuysen, S., Davies, V., & Shorr, R. (2021). Disinvestment in the presence of uncertainty: Description of a novel, multi-group, disinvestment trial design and protocol for an application to reduce or cease use of mobilisation alarms for preventing falls in hospitals. PloS one, 16(12), e0261793. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261793