Dr Lee Woods

Research Fellow

Centre for Health Services Research
Faculty of Medicine

Overview

As a nursing informatics researcher, I believe in the power of digital health to improve the experiences of patients and clinicians, reduce healthcare expenditure, and improve population health. My research program focuses on safe, effective, and equitable digital transformation of the Queensland Health system. My previous experiences as a cardiac Clinical Nurse Specialist within the acute healthcare system and government official at the Australian Digital Health Agency, uniquely position me as a strong leader in my field, drawing on industry and government experiences to drive my translational research program. As a Fellow of the AIDH and emerging leader in the Australian digital health community and am often invited to present on digital health, clinician-led innovation and health services research. My work has been recognised by multiple awards; The University of Queensland's Promoting Women Fellowship; the Joan Edgecumbe Scholarship, the Health Informatics Society of Australia’s emerging health informatics leader award; Health Informatics Society of Australia Branko Cesnik Best Student Academic Paper award; the Moya Conrick prize for best submitted paper and presentation at the Nursing Informatics Australia Conference; and the Vice-Chancellors Leadership Award at the University of Tasmania. I remain passionate about clinician-led healthcare improvement and the advancement of nurses to lead change in research institutions, government and health services. I currently supervise PhD and Honours students, and conduct peer-previews for various academic journals that cross the domains of digital health and health services research. 

Research Impacts

Most recently, I have actively engaged with the Queensland Government to deliver a multi-site digital maturity assessment spanning all 16 Hospital and Health Services in Queensland - findings are being translated into Queensland’s next digital health strategy and implementation plan demonstrating my growing prominence in digital health. My work has also informed Federal digital health policy and driven key educational reform of the Australian Healthcare workforce – I was project manager for the National Digital Heath Workforce and Education Roadmap and National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework at the Australian Digital Health Agency. These documents provide a strategic framework for improving digital health literacy skills in healthcare workers. This was extended with a book chapter (currently in press) providing guidelines for how clinicians can apply digital health in practice to improve patient care. Throughout 2022, I am on the Project Leadership Team to develop Australia's first Clinical Informatics Fellowship program with the Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH). Previously, I developed, for the first time, a mobile health app for the health service in which I worked, which was tested on patients in the home setting and complemented existing clinical care. My contribution to new knowledge on clinician-led digital health innovation is demonstrated in my publication record. In particular, I bring Design Thinking and structured co-design processes into the development of digital health innovations, and these papers are cited in more than 14 countries.These key examples demonstrate how my work is helping to deliver tangible outcomes to the healthcare system and drive improvement.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania
  • Postgraduate Diploma, University of Tasmania
  • Bachelor (Honours), University of Tasmania
  • Postgraduate Diploma, University of Tasmania
  • Bachelor of Nursing, Australian Catholic University

Publications

View all Publications

Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Book Chapter

  • Khan, Urooj R., Woods, Leanna, Dimaguila, Gerardo Luis C., Khalifa, Mohamed, Schoff, Elizabeth, Russell, Greig and Ray, Saswata (2021). Journeys into becoming a digital health specialist. The Health Information Workforce. (pp. 349-359) edited by Kerryn Butler-Henderson, Karen Day and Kathleen Gray. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-81850-0_25

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Cummings, Elizabeth, Moran, Greg, Woods, Leanna, Almond, Helen, Procter, Paula, Makeham, Meredith, Dobroff, Naomi, Griffin, Ken, Reeves, Julie, Nowlan, Shelley, Ryan, Angela and Schaper, Louise (2021). Methodology for the development of the Australian National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework. 15th International Congress in Nursing Informatics: Nurses and Midwives in the Digital Age, NI 2021, Online, 23 August - 2 September 2021. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/SHTI210685

  • Woods, Leanna, Sharif Bidabadi, Shiva, Ryan, Angela, Shaw, Tim and Makeham, Meredith (2021). Improving the digital capabilities of australia s health workforce: the national digital health workforce and education roadmap. Australian Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2020), Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 19-21 October 2020. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/shti210014

  • Woods, Leanna, Cummings, Elizabeth, Dobroff, Naomi, Nowlan, Shelley, Almond, Helen, Procter, Paula, Ryan, Angela, Makeham, Meredith, Griffin, Ken, Reeves, Julie and Schaper, Louise (2021). Intended use of the national nursing and midwifery digital health capability framework. Australian Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2020), Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 19-21 October 2020. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/shti210018

  • Woods, Leanna, Roehrer, Erin, Duff, Jed, Walker, Kim and Cummings, Elizabeth (2019). Co-design of a mobile health app for heart failure: perspectives from the team. Australian National Conference for Health Informatics HIC 2019, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 12 - 14 August 2019. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/SHTI190792

  • Woods, Leanna, Cummings, Elizabeth, Duff, Jed and Walker, Kim (2018). Conceptual design and iterative development of a mhealth app by clinicians, patients and heir families. 26th Australian National Health Informatics Conference (HIC), Sydney, NSW Australia, August 2018. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Physics Publishing. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-890-7-170

  • Woods, Leanna, Cummings, Elizabeth, Duff, Jed and Walker, Kim (2018). Partnering in digital health design: engaging the multidisciplinary team in a needs analysis. 26th Australian National Health Informatics Conference (HIC), Sydney, NSW Australia, August 2018. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Physics Publishing. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-890-7-176

  • Woods, Leanna, Duff, Jed, Cummings, Elizabeth and Walker, Kim (2017). The development and use of personas in a user-centred mhealth design project. 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction OZCHI 2017, Brisbane, QLD Australia, November 2017. Washington, DC United States: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3152771.3156186

  • Woods, Leanna, Cummings, Elizabeth, Duff, Jed and Walker, Kim (2017). Design thinking for mHealth application co-design to support heart failure self-management. International Conference on Context Sensitive Health Informatics, Human and Socio-Technical Approaches (CSHI), Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 18 - 19 August 2017. Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press. doi: 10.3233/978-1-61499-794-8-97

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor