Gastroenterologist at Monash Health and a PhD candidate through Monash University.
Research project: A multidisciplinary home-based 28-day program for patients with decompensated cirrhosis. This project stems from Natalie’s PhD research into ambulatory care for chronic liver disease patients, who historically have high rates of hospital admission, short-term mortality, and multisystem clinical needs.
Natalie Ngu is one of our scholarship recipients of the 2025 Implementation Mentoring Program. This 12-month program supports clinicians, nurses, improvement facilitators, health-service managers and implementation researchers with new evidence-informed learnings and mentorship opportunities that will support the successful implementation of their real-world health service projects.
Can you tell us about yourself and your career journey to date?
I am a gastroenterologist based at Monash Health and a PhD candidate through Monash University. I completed my training through Alfred Health and Monash Health in Melbourne, before gaining further experience through an ambulatory liver fellowship at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.
Tell us about your project including the significance of your project and the healthcare problem it intends to solve?
My research has focussed on multidisciplinary, ambulatory care for chronic liver disease patients, who historically have high rates of hospital admission, short-term mortality, and multisystem clinical needs. The project follows on from an RCT conducted as part of my PhD evaluating a home-based, 28-day program for patients with decompensated cirrhosis and I hope to implement our findings in the real-world clinic. The project has been a multidisciplinary, inter-unit collaboration involving Gastroenterology, Hospital in the Home, and medical, nursing, dietetics, pharmacy, physiotherapy, addiction medicine, and social work clinicians.
What does it mean for you and your work to be supported by this 12 month mentoring program?
I am very grateful to be supported to participate in this mentoring program, which I anticipate will result in a more effective and streamlined implementation of our collaborative work. I hope that a greater understanding of implementation science principles will allow us to address challenges that we encountered during the feasibility and randomised clinical trials including effective recruitment, protocolisation, data collection, attrition, and loss to follow up.
What knowledge and skills are you hoping to acquire during the program?
I am hoping to learn how to prepare to succeed with regards to project development, implementation, and evaluation. I am new to the field of implementation science and I can see there is a great deal to learn regarding background research, protocol set-up, and application of frameworks. Translating clinical guidelines or findings from a trial setting to a real-world clinic setting can be challenging due to practical, staffing, and patient-related factors. I hope to acquire an understanding of how to utilise implementation science frameworks to effectively address real-world challenges.
Why do you think programs like this are important for healthcare practitioners and the healthcare sector?
Mentoring has huge benefits for both mentors and mentees within the healthcare sector and beyond. The opportunity to contribute and receive relevant expertise and experience is invaluable. For this Monash Partners implementation science course, a structured mentoring program is an ideal way to plan and workshop projects from paper to reality, aligning with the practical philosophy that is central to this field. For the healthcare sector with limitations including policy, funding, and infrastructure; programs facilitated by those with lived experience provide insight and tailored advice to help shape strategies to get projects with potential off the ground.
What impact can you foresee programs like this having on the healthcare sector and clients who access healthcare services?
Across many fields, multidisciplinary and patient-centred care is a growing field due to the need to address multisystem issues in increasingly complicated patients. We are limited by resources yet have a greater understanding of the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration to provide optimised and customised care. Our population is always changing but is increasingly diverse culturally and clinically, so I hope that programs like this can add to the existing literature regarding the impact of novel models of care in chronic disease, improve patient access and acceptance of quality healthcare, and ultimately improve end points such as hospital admission and mortality.
