ProQuest Helps Austin Health Researchers Save Hours in Request Management
Austin Health, a leader in Melbourne’s healthcare landscape, is renowned for delivering world-class patient care and driving medical innovation. As part of this network, the Victorian Translational Research Institute (VicTRI) serves as its dedicated research arm, with nearly 1,000 researchers collaborating across multiple sites to advance medical science and improve community health outcomes.
The Challenge:
When the Discovery and Innovation Unit reached out to us, they faced two big challenges:
- The case management system, handling over 200 daily research submissions, was bogged down by manual task assignments. This lowered user adoption, slowed approvals, and placed unnecessary pressure on the team.
- The ethics request process, critical for safeguarding participant safety, upholding ethical standards, and maintaining public trust in research, was inefficient and scattered across multiple systems, making it harder for researchers to track progress, maintain consistent document management, collaborate effectively, and ensure compliance.
Both processes needed an overhaul to support the growing research demands at Austin Health.
ProQuest at work:
Case Management Transformation: We optimised Austin Health’s existing Salesforce setup focusing on automating repetitive tasks and enhancing researchers’ user experience. Key improvements included:
- Enhanced workflows with automation to reduce manual input and save hours daily.
- Redesigned case submission forms with built-in validation for greater accuracy.
- Set up proactive alerts and notifications for key teams, ensuring timely updates across the case management process.
- Delivered a more intuitive interface to make navigation seamless and improve user adoption.
Ethics Request Portal: Building on the success of the case management enhancements, we developed a centralised portal for ethics requests, allowing researchers to manage their submissions more effectively for easier compliance. Notable changes included:
- Created a visually engaging, mobile-friendly platform and updated the current portal’s look to align with their branding.
- Introduced real-time updates on request statuses making it easier to monitor and report.
- Improved coordination and communication within the approval committee reducing misunderstandings and reworks.
- Implemented self-registration for researchers, saving time and effort for the admin team.
- Ensured the system could scale alongside the volume and growth of Austin Health’s research programs.
The Results for Austin Health:
With our enhancements, Austin Health achieved significant time savings and operational efficiency in both workflows. Researchers now have an optimised system for submitting cases and managing ethics approvals, reducing delays and freeing up staff for higher-value activities.The feedback speaks for itself—Austin Health rated us 5/5 on both projects and shared glowing praise for the partnership.
"ProQuest is absolutely the best implementation partner I have ever worked with! Without them, I would have moved away from Salesforce."
Heidi Gaulke,
Director of Operations- Discovery & Innovation Unit (Austin Health)
Director- Research Enablers & Partnership (Victorian Translational Research Institute)
From saving hours to creating a future-ready platform, ProQuest is proud to support Austin Health in driving world-class research that makes a difference. Let’s talk about what we can do for your business!
