PhD Studentship in Health Services Research at the University of British Columbia - investigating hip fracture care

POSITION
The Centre of Hip Health and Mobility in Vancouver is offering a studentship for studying hip fracture care. The PhD project will be supported by an established group of clinician-scientists, health services researchers and statistical analysts whose mission is to close the gap between care that is possible and care that is actually provided to hip fracture patients. The work will be done under the supervision of Dr. Boris Sobolev and Dr. Pierre Guy.

BACKGROUND
Breaking a hip means high risk of death, immobility and dependence for 30, 000 Canadians each year: 30% will die within a year, 25% never walk again, and 22% never live independently. With an aging population and longer lives, these figures pose a major challenge to health care in Canada. Our research aims to answer the question that policymakers and health care providers tell us matters most – how do we identify patients at risk of death, immobility, dependence earlier, so that the health system can intervene to prevent this transition?

PhD PROJECT
The expected project will aim at developing algorithms for predicting service use and outcomes in hip fracture care. This will involve (1) data fusion for piecing together multiple sources of information about patients, their injuries, their treatments and care paths, and (2) predictive analytics for likely service use and outcomes in the care paths of hip fracture patients.

APPLICATION
The studentship will be offered to successful applicants for the PhD program at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, Canada (http://spph.ubc.ca/). The application deadline for the PhD program is January 15, 2018 for a September 2018 start. We invite an expression of interest from around the globe and will help potential applicants to develop their application for this very competitive program.

If you have a MSc degree in health services research, biostatistics, or epidemiology, send an expression of interest to Dr Chudyk ([Email Address Removed]) by September 15, 2017. Please describe your academic background and research interests. We would also like to see your post-secondary transcripts. Shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview.