Dr Maria Alejandra Pinero de Plaza

15/10/2026

🔬 COMING SOON | HUMMBER: Evaluating interventions that change while we evaluate them

What happens when a digital or AI-enabled behaviour change intervention changes during implementation?

Its content may evolve. Its algorithms may be updated. Its users, contexts and patterns of engagement may shift.

Yet conventional evaluations often assume that the intervention being assessed remains relatively stable.

HUMMBER challenges that assumption.

I'm pleased to share that my new methodological manuscript has been submitted to BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, with a preprint currently in production through Research Square.

HUMMBER asks a deceptively simple question:

How can we identify what changed, for whom, why, and with what effect?

This work builds on my broader research in implementation science, human-centred AI and evaluation methodology, including PROLIFERATE and PROLIFERATE_AI.

📖 Preprint coming soon on Research Square.

I look forward to sharing the manuscript and opening a conversation about how evaluation methods can keep pace with increasingly adaptive digital health technologies.

Flinders University The University of Adelaide STEM Sisters JBI Springer Nature

12/10/2026

🎉 Delighted that our research has been accepted at ACSPRI–ASNAC 2026!

Our network analysis reveals how interconnected health, social and service challenges compound disadvantage among frail, homebound and bedridden people.

Making the invisible visible through methodological innovation!

🔗 https://conferences.acspri.org.au/2026/talk/3B7NB7/


Flinders University The University of Adelaide SA Health STEM Sisters

07/10/2026

Feeling especially grateful this week to see 11 citation notifications across AI, implementation science, knowledge translation, nursing, cardiovascular care, consumer engagement, and digital communities. 📚💙

🤖 1. PROLIFERATE was cited by Brobbey, Bhosale amp; Ackom in Beyond the black box in healthcare operations.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2026.1864565

Ours: https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2023.1154614

🌍 2. Knowledge translation in transdisciplinary teams was cited by Chapman, Kolt, Boaz et al. in Advancing evidence-informed policy.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-026-01503-3

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-00967-x

🧩 3. From Promise to Practice was cited by Safavi-Abbasi et al. in A transdisciplinary framework for chronic illness and chronic pain.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1914023

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323241235882

🤖🩺 4. FoC Intelligence Modelling Tool was cited by R. Colin Blenis in work on AI, robotics and person-centred fundamental care.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.70773

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.70335

❤️ 5. Nurse-led hypertension interventions was cited by Doubova et al. in the Mexican e-Cohort study.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15713-6

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn/zvad040

🗣️ 6. Consumer engagement in healthcare was cited by Prastyo, Tesmei, Sumiyati et al. in new research on communication and patient safety in Indonesia.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.30994/jceh.v9i2.816Ours: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261808

❤️‍🩹 7. Cardiac rehabilitation utilisation and effectiveness was cited by Anna Gerasimova.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.17759/jmfp.2026150312

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlc.2024.01.018

💚 8. Benign and malicious envy in luxury consumption was cited by Golverdi amp; Sharifirad in Benign Envy in Nursing.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.1155/jonm/2916301

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.10.005

🤖 9. PROLIFERATE_AI was also cited by Brobbey, Bhosale amp; Ackom.

Citing: https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2026.1864565

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2025.105810

🌐 10. “You Are By No Means Alone” was cited by Othman et al. in Netnographic Analysis in Healthcare-Related Research and Education.

Citing: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/415037202

Ours: https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323221124979

🌐 11. Peer-to-Peer Health Communication in Older Adults’ Online Communities was cited in the same paper.

Citing: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/415037202

Ours: https://doi.org/10.2196/19834

Deeply grateful to the researchers building on our work, and to all the collaborators, participants, clinicians and communities behind these studies. Seeing this work contribute to new questions and new disciplines is a privilege. 💙

Flinders University Flinders University Flinders University The University of Adelaide STEM Sisters National Health and Medical Research Council - NHMRC

06/10/2026

This response addresses criticisms by Ibsen and colleagues regarding the definition of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) by Nova, proposed mechanisms linking UPFs to health outcomes, and the choice of comparators in epidemiological studies. We argue that these critiques partially reflect a misunderstandi...

06/10/2026

We test AI in isolation. Then we're surprised when it changes nothing or makes things worse. 🫨 That's the problem my contribution to World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day 2026 takes on. The question isn't simply “Does the AI work?” Evidence-based healthcare has never been about tools alone. It's about people making decisions, under pressure, with incomplete information.

So why do we evaluate AI as if clinicians, patients and context disappear when the algorithm arrives? In “Making human/AI systems an object of evidence,” I argue for a shift:
🔹 Stop evaluating algorithms in isolation.
🔹 Start evaluating the human/AI system, including the people, decisions, workflows and contexts that shape outcomes.

Because when AI enters the room, it doesn't just inform decisions. It changes how decisions are made, and our evidence needs to capture that.

💙 Proud to be an for 2026, supporting this year's theme, “Evidence and AI: People at the Centre.”

Being an Evidence Ambassador means helping to start conversations, encourage debate and share knowledge about better evidence for healthcare.

World EBHC Day 2026_Evidence Am…Equally proud that Flinders University is also an Evidence Ambassador this year.📖 Read my contribution:

https://worldebhcday.org/blog/2026/making-humanai-systems-object-evidence

Flinders University JBI CSIRO STEM Sisters Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences - The University of Adelaide SA Health National Health and Medical Research Council - NHMRC

01/10/2026

Celebrating 30 years of JBI and three decades of advancing evidence-based healthcare. 🥂🎉🎊
It feels especially meaningful to celebrate this milestone alongside World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day and my latest contribution, “Making human/AI systems an object of evidence”, asking what changes when we make the human/AI system, rather than AI alone, an object of evidence.
https://doi.org/10.70253/FSVN1820⁠ 👈🙌🧿🙏
Here’s to the next chapter of better evidence, better decisions, and better care. 💙

30/09/2026

💥 What if the most interesting thing to study isn’t the AI at all?

For World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day, I wrote about an idea that has been increasingly shaping how I think about AI, evidence and healthcare: perhaps the human/AI system itself needs to become our object of evidence.

Because once we change what we are looking at, we may start seeing things that were invisible before.

Does this argument convince you, or can you prove me wrong? 👇

https://worldebhcday.org/blog/2026/making-humanai-systems-object-evidence

Author: Dr Maria Alejandra Piñero de Plaza11. Caring Futures Institute, Flinders University

30/09/2026

🌍 There is something genuinely uplifting about opening my weekly ResearchGate report and seeing our work out in the world, being read, recommended and cited by researchers everywhere. 12 new citations this week, and every one is a reminder that research only truly matters when it finds its way into other people's thinking, practice and policy.
A few of the papers cited this week, spanning the breadth of what we do, from First Nations health equity, knowledge translation and consumer engagement, to person-centred care, multimorbidity and cardiovascular health:
📌 Health System Enablers and Barriers to Continuity of Care for First Nations Peoples Living with Chronic Disease (Int J Integrated Care) https://ijic.org/articles/10.5334/ijic.7643
📌 How transdisciplinary research teams learn to do knowledge translation (KT) (Health Research Policy and Systems) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12961-023-00967-x
📌 Co-Designing Evidence-Based Videos in Health Care: "Evidence-Experience" Resources (Int J Qualitative Methods) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/16094069211019623
📌 Self-management support interventions for socioeconomically disadvantaged older adults with chronic conditions (Patient Education and Counseling) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073839912500672X
📌 The trouble with personhood and person-centred care (Nursing Philosophy) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nup.12381
📌 Not Well Enough to Attend Appointments: Telehealth Versus Health Marginalisation (Studies in Health Technology and Informatics) https://ebooks.iospress.nl/volumearticle/56636
📌 Consumer engagement in health care policy, research and services: A systematic review and meta-analysis (PLOS ONE) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261808
📌 Effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation programs on medication adherence (Int J Cardiology: Cardiovascular Risk and Prevention) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcrp.2023.200229
📌 How Context Shapes Person-Centred Fundamental Care Through Nurse-Patient Relationships (J Advanced Nursing) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jan.70335
📌 Self-Care Experiences and Support Needs of Community-Dwelling Older Adults With Multimorbidity (J Clinical Nursing) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocn.70325
📌 Effectiveness of nurse-led interventions versus usual care to manage hypertension and lifestyle behaviour (European J Cardiovascular Nursing) https://academic.oup.com/eurjcn/article/23/1/21/7148296
Huge thanks to my co-authors, collaborators, and the consumers and communities who make this work possible. Every citation tells us someone, somewhere, is building on what we started together. 🙏

22/09/2026

🎉 A milestone worth celebrating with our team!

Our systematic review and meta-analysis, “Effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation programs on medication adherence in patients with cardiovascular disease,” has now reached 20 citations! 📚❤️

It is always rewarding to see collaborative research continue to be read, cited and used by colleagues after publication. This work brought together evidence from 33 studies and 16,677 participants, finding that cardiac rehabilitation programs improved medication adherence by 14%, alongside important findings across clinical and quality-of-life outcomes.

Congratulations to Dr. Lemlem Gebremedhin and our entire author team, and to the NHMRC CHAP Project Team. A lovely reminder that research impact continues well beyond publication.

Here’s to the next milestone, and most importantly, to evidence that contributes to better cardiovascular care. ❤️

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcrp.2023.200229

Heart Foundation

22/09/2026

I’m grateful to share that I have been selected to join the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Women’s Action Committee (WAC) as an Academic Staff Representative for South Australia.

As part of the EOI, I was asked why I wanted to contribute. My answer came from a principle that has shaped much of my research and advocacy: making the invisible visible. Through my work with Frail, Homebound and Bedridden People , I have seen how easily experiences and voices can remain outside the systems and decisions that affect them. I want to bring that same commitment to this role: listen, make experiences visible, and help translate them into meaningful action.

To women academics across Flinders University, The University of Adelaide, Torrens University Australia, Carnegie Mellon University, and the broader SA tertiary sector: I’m here to serve, and I want to hear from you.

What needs to be heard? What needs to change? What should we strengthen?

Thank you SA WAC representatives for your confidence and warm welcome.

Representation starts with listening. Impact comes from what we do with what we hear.
https://www.nteu.au/NTEU/Key_Issues/NTEU_Women


STEM Sisters Franklin Women Flinders Women in STEM Flinders Caring Futures Institute Highlight Highlights

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work, and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We also acknowledge that this land....