Rural and remote Queenslanders are set to benefit from a new research study aimed at slowing the progression of frailty amongst older people, and promoting healthy ageing, thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).
The grant will be used to establish an Alliance for Healthy Ageing (AHA), to be led by Professor Claire Jackson, Director of the Centre for Health System Reform and Integration Queensland (CHSRI), a collaboration by Mater Research and The University of Queensland.
“Up to 80 per cent of Australians aged 75 years or over are classified as at risk of frailty or frail,” Prof Jackson said.
“These people are experiencing frequent emergency department presentations and long hospital stays, combined with limited access to aged care beds.
“For people in rural or remote areas, support services are either prohibitively expensive or hard to access, and this health inequity is only expected to grow.
"The AHA will develop a coordinated, multidisciplinary workforce to enable healthcare practitioners to effectively identify and manage frailty to improve the wellbeing of regional Queenslanders.
“We know from international studies that this works to slow, and even reverse, the progression of frailty.”
The newly formed AHA will deliver virtual models of care that have been developed by Prof Jackson’s team at CHSRI.
“We are already implementing the FRAIL Scale—a screening tool that enables general practitioners and practice nurses to identify frailty in patients in as little as two minutes,” she said.
“This tool will be implemented at annual health assessments and includes management recommendations to reduce the risk of frailty.”
The AHA will also deliver a virtual integrated practitioner model that involves recruiting urban GPs to provide ongoing care for rural general practices and their patients via telehealth, as well as the Queensland eConsultant Partnership Project.
eConsultant provides rural and regional GPs with timely access to support and advice from Mater Hospital Brisbane specialists to improve the diagnoses and care of patients.
Prof Jackson said that the research would measure ongoing frailty progression, as well as hospital and emergency department visits.
“We look forward to implementing this project across Western Queensland to support people with healthy ageing,” she said.
