Dr Mary Dahm
Research interests
Mary is a linguist analysing how the little (or big) things we do (or don't do) with language impact on patient safety and quality of care.
She has a keen interest in Communicating for Diagnostic Excellence, improving the critical diagnostic conversations clinicians have with patients, from history taking to providing diagnosis, discussing risk and managing and communicating uncertainty.
Mary's program of work is impactful, translational research at the nexus of applied linguistics and health communication. Her interdisciplinary collaborations involve clinicians across a range of care settings, health consumer representatives, and patients. She aims to identify communication and systemic issues to address barriers to improve diagnosis, patient safety and quality of care through innovative consumer-driven research in health communication.
Biography
Dr Mary Dahm is an ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Communication in Health Care (ICH) at the Australian National University.
She combines her passion for patient-centred health research with her interdisciplinary expertise in qualitative and mixed methods approaches in health communication and health services research.
Mary’s project Addressing the Challenge of Communicating Uncertainty in Diagnosis was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council (ARC). This project will examine the critical role and impact of communication on the diagnostic process in health settings. Expected outcomes include practical communication strategies, advanced research methods in misdiagnosis, enhanced research capacity in the health community and new insights on diagnostic safety in the health policy space. Work on this prestigious grant started in August 2022 and brings together the different scientific disciplines of linguistics, health communication, consumer engagement and diagnostic error, and a diverse team of stakeholders including clinicians, patient advocates and policy makers.
In collaboration with Dr Carmel Crock (Director Emergency Department, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, Melbourne), Dr Dahm has published foundational journal articles and viewpoints on language in diagnosis and diagnostic uncertainty. This includes an invited viewpoint Understanding and Communicating Uncertainty in Achieving Diagnostic Excellence in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Diagnostic Statement: Linguistic Analysis of how Clinicians Communicate Diagnosis, the first academic work linking linguistic expressions and diagnostic accuracy which garnered national media attention.
Patient engagement and consumer-driven research activities are central to her work. She has successfully led inclusive stakeholder workshops to enhance patient contributions towards addressing systemic issues and influencing health care policy. At ICH she has established a vibrant consumer refeprence group.
She has published over 50 peer reviewed publications on a wide range of health communication topics including patient-centred communication, clinical handovers, surgical risk communication, health information infrastructure, and rapport and trust in consultations.
Mary is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University. There she was the project lead for an NHMRC-funded partnership project on improving test result management run in collaboration with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, NSW Pathology and Health Consumers NSW.
Researcher's projects
2023
- ABIM Foundation "Communicating Wisely: Designing the ABIM Foundation Platform for Teaching and Evaluating the Communication of Uncertainty" (with US collaborators Dimitrios Papanagnou (Thomas Jefferson University) and Lekshmi Santhosh (University of California San Francisco))
2022
- Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) "Addressing the challenge of communicating uncertainty in diagnosis" 2022-2025
- Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) Fellowship in Diagnostic Excellence "Diagnosis-related health care and research policy development – Quo vadis?"
2021
- Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) "Harnessing the Health Communication Power of the Early Childhood Sector" (led by Prof Sheila Degotardi, Macquarie University)
Available student projects
I am available to supervise research student projects focused on
- health communication,
- interpersonal pragmatics and
- projects employing qualitative methods in health services research and discourse analysis in professional interactions.
Currently there are options for shorter term research placement projects related to
- communication in diagnosis and communication of diagnostic uncertainty,
- systematic reviews on health communication topic related to diagnostic safety and communication
- shared decision making for patient with chronic kidney disease
- consumer/ patient engagement in health communication research
Feel free to contact me with further proposals.
Current student projects
ANU Medical School Research Projects
- Sybilla Stonnill (2023- ): "The power of language to influence the recommendations and lessons learned from Coroner’s reports for people whose deaths were complicated by misdiagnosis.” - Primary supervisor
Past student projects
ANU Medical School Research Projects
- Rose Carey (2022-2023): "Diagnostic errors and diagnostic safety in emergency medicine in the United States and Australia. Insights from a qualitative study of interviews." - primary supervisor
- Callum Wood (2022-2023): "Diagnostic Error and its Contributing Factors in Sepsis Cases of Tasmanian Coronial Findings from 2015 to 2021" - primary supervisor
- Michael Stevens (2022-2023): "Diagnostic Error amongst Five Vascular Disease Types, contained in TasmanianCoronial Findings from 2015 to 2021" - primary supervisor
- Cellina Polifrone (2021-2022): "Enhancing Health Communication in CKD” - primary supervisor
- Rohan Corrigan (2021-2022): "Impact of COVID-19 on the well-being of mental health inpatients" - co-supervisor
- Renming Liu (2021-2022): "The effect of COVID-19 on hospital healthcare" - co-supervisor
- Thomas La (2021-2022): "Impact of COVID-19 on consumer experience of ACT health services" - co-supervisor
- William Cattanach (2020-2021): "How do doctors communicate diagnostic uncertainty in primary care and how does it impact patient experience? An integrative review” - primary supervisor - This work has been published Open Access in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-022-07768-y)
Publications
- Dahm, M, Slade, D, Brady, B et al. 2022, 'Tracing interpersonal discursive features in Australian nursing bedside handovers: Approachability features, patient engagement and insights for ESP training and working with internationally trained nurses', English for Specific Purposes, vol. 66, pp. 17-32.
- Chien, L, Slade, D, Dahm, M et al. 2022, 'Improving patient-centred care through a tailored intervention addressing nursing clinical handover communication in its organizational and cultural context', Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 78, no. 5, pp. 1413-1430.
- Dahm, M & Crock, C 2022, 'Understanding and communicating uncertainty in achieving diagnostic excellence', JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 327, no. 12, pp. 1127-1128.
- Rihari-Thomas, J, Whittam, S, Goncharov, L et al. 2022, 'Assessment and communication excellence for safe patient outcomes (ACCELERATE): A stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial protocol', Collegian, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 799-805.
- Haug, M, Dahm, M, Gewald, H et al. 2022, 'Just Talk to Me - A Qualitative Study of Patient Satisfaction in Emergency Departments', Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, vol. 290, pp. 385-389.
- White, S, Davies, L, Cartmill, J et al. 2022, '"For review and management": The role of the referral letter in surgical consultations', QUALITATIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 48-60.
- Degotardi, S, Waniganayake, M, Bull, R et al. 2022, 'Using a multidisciplinary, multi-method and collaborative research design to investigate the health communication power of the early childhood sector', Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 245-259.
- Dahm, M, Williams, M & Crock, C 2022, ''More than words' - Interpersonal communication, cognitive bias and diagnostic errors', Patient Education and Counseling, vol. 105, no. 1, pp. 252-256.
- Dahm, M, Georgiou, A, Balandin, S et al. 2021, 'Health Information and the Quality and Safety of Care for People With Disability: An Analysis of Australian Reports of Reviewable Deaths in Residential Care ', Journal of Patient Safety, vol. 17, no. 8, pp. e1559-e1575.
- Dahm, M & Yates, L 2020, 'Rapport, empathy and professional identity: some challenges for international medical graduates speaking English as a second or foreign language', in C Hohenstein, M Levy-Todter (ed.), Multilingual Healthcare: A Global View on Communicative Challenges, Springer Gabler, Germany, pp. 209-234.
- Wabe, N, Li, L, Lindeman, R et al. 2021, 'Evaluation of the accuracy of diagnostic coding for influenza compared to laboratory results: the availability of test results before hospital discharge facilitates improved coding accuracy', BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, vol. 21, no. 1.
- Dahm, M, Li, J, Thomas, J et al. 2021, 'How is test-related information communicated in Australian Emergency Departments? ED clinicians' and patients' perspectives', Patient Education and Counseling, vol. 104, no. 8, pp. 1970-77.
- Miao, M, Dahm, M, Li, J et al. 2020, 'Managing Uncertainty During the Communication of Diagnostic Test Information Between Patients and Clinicians in Australian Emergency Care', Qualitative Health Research, vol. 30, no. 8, pp. 1287-1300.
- Thomas, J, Dahm, M, Li, J et al. 2020, 'Can patients contribute to enhancing the safety and effectiveness of test-result follow-up? Qualitative outcomes from a health consumer workshop', Health Expectations, pp. 1-12.
- Thomas, J, Dahm, M, Li, J et al. 2020, 'Variation in electronic test results management and its implications for patient safety: A multisite investigation', Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 1214-1224.
- Dahm, M, Brown, A, Martin, D et al. 2019, 'Interaction and innovation: practical strategies for inclusive consumer-driven research in health services', BMJ Open, vol. 9, no. 12, pp. -.
- Georgiou, A, Hardie, R, Dahm, M et al 2019, 'Diagnostic Informatics: Its Role in Enhancing Clinical Excellence, Patient Safety and the Value of Care', Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, vol. 264, pp. 591-595.
- Dahm, M, Georgiou, A, Bryant, L et al 2019, 'Information infrastructure and quality person-centred support in supported accommodation: An integrative review', Patient Education and Counseling, vol. 102, pp. 1413-1426.
- Dahm, M, Georgiou, A, Balandin, S et al 2019, 'Health Information Infrastructure for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) Living in Supported Accommodation: Communication, Co-Ordination and Integration of Health Information', Health Communication, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 91-99.
- Dahm, M, Georgiou, A, Herkes, R et al 2018, 'Patient groups, clinicians and healthcare professionals agree“ all test results need to be seen, understood and followed up', Diagnosis, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 215-222.
- Dahm, M, Georgiou, A, Westbrook, J et al 2018, 'Delivering safe and effective test-result communication, management and follow-up: a mixed-methods study protocol', BMJ - British Medical Journal, vol. 8, pp. 10pp.
- Dahm, M 2018, 'A socio-cognitive investigation of English medical terminology: dynamic varieties of meaning', Lexicography, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 81-103.
- Wabe, N, Li, L, Lindeman, R et al. 2019, 'Impact of Rapid Molecular Diagnostic Testing of Respiratory Viruses on Outcomes of Adults Hospitalized with Respiratory Illness: a Multicenter Quasi-experimental Study', Journal of Clinical Microbiology, vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 1-11.
- Wabe, N, Li, L, Lindeman, R et al 2019, 'The impact of rapid molecular diagnostic testing for respiratory viruses on outcomes for emergency department patients', Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 210, no. 7, pp. 316-320.
- Georgiou, A, Li, J, Thomas, J et al 2019, 'The impact of health information technology on the management and follow-up of test results - a systematic review', Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, vol. 26, no. 7, pp. 678-688.
- Wabe, N, Li, L, Dahm, M et al 2019, 'Timing of respiratory virus molecular testing in emergency departments and its association with patient care outcomes: a retrospective observational study across six Australian hospitals', BMJ - British Medical Journal, vol. 9, no. 8, pp. 1-7.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Addressing the challenge of communicating uncertainty in diagnosis (Primary Investigator)
- Harnessing the health communication power of early childhood sector (Secondary Investigator)
