COST2CARE Research Team and Collaborators
Dr Marcia Kirwan
Dr Marcia Kirwan (Principal Investigator)
Dr Kirwan is Associate Professor, School of Nursing Psychotherapy & Community Health, Dublin City University (DCU). She is a nurse and a midwife, and an active health service researcher. Her research interests lie within three distinct but overlapping themes: patient safety, missed or rationed nursing care and health workforce planning, and her collaborations on this work extend across many European countries. In-keeping with that focus on patient safety and nursing research she is currently PI on this 4-year HRB funded project (2022-2026) COST2CARE which aims to contribute to safer hospital care and reduced healthcare costs associated for older patients in acute hospitals in Ireland.
Prof. Anne Matthews
Prof. Anne Matthews
Professor Matthews is a Full Professor of Nursing at the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy & Community Health. She is a Registered General Nurse and Registered Midwife and holds a B.Soc.Sc. from University College Dublin, an MSc Social Policy & Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD from Dublin City University. She has worked in nursing, midwifery, health and social research, education, policy and practice in Ireland, England and Malawi.
Prof. Walter Sermeus
Professor Walter Sermeus
Professor Sermeus is emeritus professor of healthcare management, Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, University of Leuven KU Leuven, Belgium. He holds a PhD in Public Health, a MSc in Biostatistics, a MSc in Healthcare Management and a BA in Nursing. He is Head of KU Leuven WHO Collaboration Centre on Human Resources in Health Research & Policy. He is Senior Fellow to the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School, USA, Fellow of the European Academy of Nursing Science, the American Academy of Nursing, the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, the Royal Society of Medicine, UK and the Academia Europaea. He is the European coordinator of the EU RN4CAST-network, Nurse Forecasting in Europe and the EU-funded Magnet4Europe study (2020-2023).
Prof. Amanda Phelan
Professor Amanda Phelan
Professor Phelan is a Professor of Ageing and Community Nursing in the School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin since March 2020. Prior to this Amanda was at University College Dublin, where she was the Director of Gerontological Programmes and Deputy Director of the National Centre for the Protection of Older People. In TCD, Amanda leads Ireland’s only MSc level multi-disciplinary programme on adult safeguarding and has teaching areas in programmes related to community health, dementia, gerontological nursing and advanced practice. Amanda has a research interest in safeguarding vulnerable populations (particularly related to older people), older person care, missed care, public health and community nursing.
Amanda is Vice President of the All-Ireland Gerontological Nurses’ Association and a member of the Board of Directors in Third Age and Safeguarding Ireland. Amanda has published two edited books on the topic of elder abuse and her third co-edited book, is on the area of gerontology. She is currently working on a book on community-centred care. Amanda has numerous peer-reviewed publications and sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect and the International Journal of Older People Nursing.
Prof. Anthony Staines
Professor Anthony Staines
Professor Staines is a Professor of Health Systems in the School of Nursing,Psychotherapy and Community Health in Dublin City University. He is a medical academic, and a public health doctor (Specialist Registration). After clinical training in paediatrics, and public health, he has worked as an academic, and a policy analyst. His research includes work on disability services, carers, health information and cancer. He has particular skills in the use of health information, health system structure and financing, and health policy. He is currently focused on digital transformation in health care, with HSE colleagues. He is leading the 2023 EUPHA conference, the largest public health conference in Europe each year, which will be in Dublin.
Ms Mairead Hayes
Mairead Hayes
Ms Hayes is a co-researcher on this project and is representative of Public and Patient involvement in health research. Over her career she worked in management roles in many organisations and has extensive experience in both the commercial (for profit) and (not for profit) community and voluntary areas. She also has experience as both a carer within her own family, and as a patient in the Irish health service. She worked with the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, initially as Development & PR Officer and then for 13 years to December 2020 as Chief Executive Officer. She is a longstanding and successful advocate for older people who has worked a both national and EU level on policy development. Ms Hayes’ role on this project is to ensure the voice of the patient and older person is both central and considered at all points in the research process.
Margie Craig
Margie Craig
Margie Craig is a Clinical Research Nurse at the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health at Dublin City University. She qualified as a general nurse and has over 30 years healthcare experience that includes specialist nursing and leadership roles, as well as experience in nurse education and research. Her postgraduate qualifications include Master’s degrees in both Sociology and Ethics, with a particular interest in the doctrine of consent and its ability to provide for all patients in the delivery of safe effective care.
Fiachra Bane
Fiachra Bane
Fiachra Bane is Head of Data Analytics with the Healthcare Pricing Office which is part of the National Finance Division of HSE. In his work with the HPO, Fiachra is responsible for the technical specification, development and maintenance of the ABF funding model in Ireland. Currently Fiachra is working with clinical stakeholders to develop the area of Quality Based Funding which seeks to link quality of care to funding as outlined in the Sláintecare Implementation Plan. One area of development is the reporting of Hospital Acquired Complications (HACs) which is a cross divisional HSE initiative examining the potential use of HIPE data to inform Quality and Patient Safety initiatives. This work is closely related to the work proposed in Cost2Care study.
Dr Leona Bannon
Dr Leona Bannon
Leona Bannon is an Assistant Professor in General Nursing at the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health at Dublin City University. She is a critical care nurse and an active delirium researcher and obtained a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast. Her research interests include prevention and management of delirium, patient safety, improving outcomes after Intensive Care Unit (ICU) delirium and implementation science. Leona is a member of the All-Ireland Critical Care Nurse and Allied Health Professional Researcher group (AICCNRG) and has worked in nursing, critical care research and education roles in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Anna Connolly
Anna Connolly
Anna is a PhD student working on the COST2CARE project. She graduated with first class honours from her undergraduate degree in 2022 (BSc in Health and Society) during which she secured a summer research internship and completed an undergraduate research project in her final year. Anna intends to conduct her PhD through publication over the lifetime of the project. She presented her early COST2CARE work at the 2023 conference of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) in Seoul, South Korea.
Research Collaborators
Dr Kasia Bail
Dr Kasia Bail
Dr Bail is conjoint Professor of Gerontological Nursing at the University of Canberra and ACT Health Directorate. Her research work is internationally recognised and focuses on the interactions between nurses, health services and older people. Her work examines potential efficiency improvements in the crossover between ‘ageing well’ and ‘care delivery’, by exploring clinical decision making in health services for older adults, including people with cognitive impairment. She enjoys co-designing research to serve people and communities, and sharing learning and inquiry with students, industry networks and professional groups.
https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/persons/kasia-bail
Dr Maria Unbeck
Dr Maria Unbeck
Dr Unbeck is an experienced clinical nurse-researcher and academic working as work as a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Dalarna University in Sweden. She defended her PhD Thesis at the Karolinska Institutet in 2012. Her background includes patient safety and quality roles along with nursing development roles. Her research spans different data collection methods such as medical record review, questionnaires, patient registers, observational methods, and interviews as well as different areas such as nursing, orthopedics, pediatric care, home healthcare and surgical care. She has led or participated in research at regional, national, and international level and has published widely on retrospective chart reviews.
