Research at the Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine (CREM) is grounded in rural practice and focuses on generating evidence to inform clinical care, system design and training in rural emergency settings. We partner with clinicians, communities and policymakers to improve the safety, quality and accessibility of emergency care across regional and remote Australia.
We are focused on both training and research to support the provision of emergency medicine services in rural hospitals across the following areas:
We capture data from small rural hospitals and create bespoke performance indicators for these settings. This supports research into high-risk presentations, environmental impacts and rural system improvement.
We use emergency department data to support community-led change. By feeding back anonymised data to stakeholders, we help design targeted responses – like the Driving Change project – that reduce alcohol-related presentations through local intervention.
We work to ensure research includes rural emergency perspectives and leads to outcomes that can be implemented locally. We engage rural clinicians, understand variation across rural and remote emergency departments, and translate evidence into context-specific practice.
Explore over 400 health-focused research topics and discover a supervisor who could help you further your research career goals.
We bring together renowned researchers who are passionate about enhancing care delivery in small rural emergency departments in Australia.
Associate Professor Tim Baker is an emergency physician and health systems researcher based on the south-west coast of Victoria. He is the inaugural director of the Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine, leading research, education and policy work to improve care in rural emergency departments.
Dr Tahnee Dunlop is an emergency physician and deputy director of the Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine. She works clinically at South West Healthcare and has research interests in rural emergency medicine, paediatric care, retrieval medicine and gender equity in the profession.
Our research projects address key issues impacting regional and rural emergency medicine, working toward more equitable health outcomes for all communities.
Rural Research in Emergency Care Network is a bi-national collaboration of rural emergency clinicians and researchers across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. We lead projects on national research priorities, rural research capacity and STEMI management in settings without catheterisation labs.
The Rural Acute Hospital Database Register captures emergency presentations across small rural hospitals in South West Victoria. It includes detailed, episode-level data not found in government datasets, enabling a better understanding of how rural emergency care is delivered. This provides the foundation for rural-specific performance metrics, research projects and system improvements.
Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are a key component of competency-based medical education, describing essential clinical tasks that doctors must be trusted to perform independently.
We review EPAs in emergency medicine and the development of tailored EPAs for rural contexts, to support consistent training and assessment for doctors working in rural emergency departments.
The Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine was established in 2008 as a partnership between the Victorian Government, Portland District Health, South West Healthcare (Warrnambool), Alcoa of Australia and Deakin’s School of Medicine.
Today, we are supported by the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. We collaborate with a wide range of health services and research organisations and are part of Deakin University’s Rural Health University Network. These partnerships support our research, education and advisory work.
We have also worked on projects with the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Safer Care Victoria.
To learn more about the Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine, our research initiatives or to work with us, please get in touch.
+61 3 5563 3500
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