Amanda Sissons
Project Title: An exploration of reverse auctions and recommender systems to improve nurse costs in the NHS
Supervisors:
Dr John Cartlidge, School of Engineering, Mathematics & Technology
Dr Roberta Bernardi, School of Management, Bristol Business School
General Profile:
I am originally from Toronto, Canada but I have dual citizenship in the UK. I have completed a BA in Psychology, a BScN in Nursing, and a MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Finance. Throughout my education I have always sought to merge my interests in health care and research and the PhD in Digital Health allows me to continue to explore this further.
During my psychology degree I conducted qualitative research that explored health care delivery in prisoner populations in Canada. In particular, I conducted in-depth interviews with prisoners to inform the development of best practice guidelines for harm reduction services in prisons, such as needle exchange programs.
After working in research for a number of years I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of front-line care provision and retrained for a BScN in Nursing at the University of Toronto. During my degree I was the recipient of the Jennifer Award, Gordon Cressy Leadership Award, RNAO Student of Distinction, Bluma Appel and Jeannie Butler Award, Julia Alice Saddington Memorial Scholarship in Community Health, Kathleen Sally Syme Memorial Scholarship in community health, the Yvonne Andrews Scholarship and the Queen Elizabeth II Sesquicentennial Scholarship in Community Health Nursing.
As a nursing student I continued to do research at St. Michaels Hospital in the Department of Surgery where I focused on developing fertility decision making aids for young women with breast cancer.
After completing my nursing degree, I worked in a high-risk maternity A&E as well as, a trauma centre. Even while nursing, research was a bit part of my life and I conducted studies on the integration of ipad based health questionnaires for patients with chronic kidney disease.
My MSc in Health Policy, Planning, and Finance at the London School of Economics allowed me to focus my research on virtual care provision in the UK and EU. For the past two years I have worked at large virtual health care companies such as Teladoc, and Hertility where I am currently the Head of Telemedicine.