Affiliation: Queen Mary University of London

Keywords: health services research, rehabilitation, equity, fragility fracture, older adults

ORCID: 0000-0002-5325-7454

Webpage: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/katie-sheehan

Katie completed her BSc in Physiotherapy in 2008, a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics in 2009, and her PhD in 2012. Subsequently, she pursued both clinical and academic roles with a focus on older adults in Ireland and Canada before taking up an academic appointment at Kings College London, UK in 2017. She joined Queen Mary University of London as a Professor of Rehabilitation in 2023.

Katie’s clinical experience in Ireland and Canada framed her subsequent research which focuses on the use of routine data to 1) evaluate variation in access, delivery, and outcomes of rehabilitation to inform quality improvement and policy change and 2) inform future interventions. Katie’s early work led her research team to publish a series of papers detailing the association between rehabilitation key performance indicators and outcomes for older adults after hip fracture surgery. Her work led to invitations to deliver several international talks informing the use of rehabilitation key performance indicators in national audit. Katie’s multidisciplinary work was supported by funding awards from the National Institute for Health Research and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Charitable Trust.

More recently, Katie was awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. These fellowships are designed to establish the careers of world-class research and innovation leaders across the UK. Among 500 researchers appointed across 7 UK Research Councils and Innovate UK, Katie is one of just two allied health professionals who have successfully secured this award. Katie’s Fellowship will use data analytics and a strong patient voice to inform the development and testing of the first stratified approach to rehabilitation for patients after hip fracture surgery. These methods have potential to benefit the organisation and delivery of rehabilitation more broadly – in the acute care setting, for other admitting diagnoses, and for older adults in other healthcare settings. This approach is regarded as central to the progress of UK healthcare according to the UK National Health Services and the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Katie holds several leadership roles including her recent appointment as Chair of the UK Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme Scientific and Publications Committee with the responsibility for signing off on research applications seeking access to three national audit datasets. Katie is also Co-Chair of the Hip Fracture Recovery Research Special Interest Group of the Global Fragility Fracture Network and serves on the Scientific Committee of the Network. She also serves as an Associate Editor of BMC Geriatrics.

In addition to her research interests, Katie is an advocate for better support of the career development and progression of early career researchers. In 2021 she was awarded funding from UKRI for a project which seeks to increase transparency and equity in access to opportunities afforded by managers and institutions to early career researchers.

Interests

  • Access, delivery, and outcomes of care following orthopaedic trauma in older adults
  • Interventions to improve outcomes of care after orthopaedic trauma in older adults
  • Use of routine and audit data to inform quality improvement and policy change
  • Supporting the development and progression of early career researchers