A/Prof Shelley Wilkinson
A/Prof Shelley Wilkinson is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and is currently the Project Officer – Clinical and Research in the Department of Obstetric Medicine, Mater Mothers Hospitals. She is also Senior Principal Research Fellow in the School of Pharmacy, UQ as part of the RECARD project.
She is recognised as a leading Australian researcher in maternal health and in implementation science. Shelley has been a dietitian since 1995 and also has a PhD in Psychology.
Currently, her work supports an evidence-informed, co-creation approach to the delivery of care within Obstetric Medicine. This includes overseeing the evaluation of the newly launched Obstetric Midwifery Group Practice (OMGP) model of care at Mater Mothers’ Hospital.
Mothers-to-be with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes have typically been unable to participate in Midwifery Group Practices (MGP) to receive antenatal care because their pregnancies are deemed to face a higher risk than those women without diabetes and the OMGP is supporting women with diabetes through a hybrid care model, which combines a traditional midwifery group practice with an extra layer of obstetric medicine care.
Previously, she collaborated with Obstetric Medicine’s Dr Jo Laurie and Prof David McIntyre to evaluate a radical service redesign for women with gestational diabetes.
The project involved working with women and the wider healthcare team, to enhance communication between women and this hospital team, as well as to streamline women’s healthcare journey at this time.
The team introduced six culturally and linguistically tailored, co-created educational videos, home delivery of equipment and prescriptions, and a smartphone app-to-clinician portal for glycaemic review and management. Women receiving care through the new model had pregnancy outcomes equivalent to those from the previous model whilst also experiencing substantial cost savings.
Despite the removal of face-to-face visits, women were able to establish a connection with their treating team and maintained their understanding of their GDM, dietary requirements and next steps to take.
Previously, Shelley held a prestigious NHMRC TRIP (Translating Research into Practice) fellowship (2012-13) that provided her with mentoring, support, and TRIP training. Her project implemented and evaluated a dietetic model of care based on the American nutrition practice guidelines’ schedule of visits. This was the first stage in a program informing statewide guideline adoption.
This work led into a Queensland Government-Health Research Fellowship (2015-20) which focussed on improving the delivery of dietetic care to women with gestational diabetes, supporting healthy gestational weight gain, and improving delivery of evidence-based nutrition information to pregnant women.
Shelley has previously been awarded one of the two inaugural ‘Mater Research grants for Outstanding Women’, developed in recognition of significantly fewer women in lead investigator roles and senior academic positions to support research and career progression of high potential female researchers at Mater.
“Thanks to these Fellowships I have built an extensive research portfolio with an emphasis in decreasing the time it takes for research to be translated into clinical practice. This is enhanced by being a clinician-researcher embedded in a maternity service.”
