Adrienne Young

Engaging consumers in frailty and ageing research

This PhD project is part of a Dementia, Ageing and Aged Care Mission Program that aims to partner with consumers to deliver a national response to frailty. Frailty is the most significant challenge to ‘ageing well’ in Australia. There are evidence-based interventions to slow the progression of frailty and reduce frailty. However, intervention programs are not routinely available as there are barriers to access and implementation in health systems.

This PhD project may explore:

• best practice methods for engaging consumers (older people and carers) in frailty and ageing research
• evaluation of consumer engagement within existing frailty and ageing research trials
• development of a consumer engagement model for a national clinical/research network.

The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to develop skills in qualitative research methods, consumer engagement and co-design. The candidate would be supported by experts in health consumer engagement and co-design.

Implementation of A Digital Frailty Index for Acute Care Settings in Queensland

This PhD project is part of a NHMRC-funded Partnership Project with Queensland Health that aims to develop and integrate a digital frailty index into hospital systems to enable frailty-informed decision-making about treatments and care options.

Frailty identifies patients at greatest risk of multiple adverse outcomes, including longer inpatient stay, hospital-acquired complications, and death. Health care systems are currently designed to meet the needs of patients with acute, single-system problems, and many frail patients of all ages receive invasive treatments from which they cannot recover. Specialists are basing their decision-making on their technical expertise rather than on an understanding of the frailty status of patients and how that impacts the risks and benefits of interventions

This PhD project may involve:

• Evaluating how the Digital Frailty Index is used in practice and how it changes treatment decisions and conversations;
• Exploring patient and caregiver perspectives about the Digital Frailty Index;
• Testing different strategies to improve the uptake and use of the Digital Frailty Index in practice; and/or
• Understanding barriers and enablers to implementing the Digital Frailty Index in practice to guide future statewide/national implementation.

This PhD will directly impact on care of older people in hospital and will inform the future implementation of the Digital Frailty Index at a state and national level.

The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to develop skills in quantitative and qualitative research methods, statistics, health informatics, implementation science and health system improvement. The candidate will be supported by experts in implementation science, ageing and geriatric medicine, statistics, digital health, and health system development.