A $3-million research grant will help develop technology to identify frailty in older people in hospital, a crucial step towards improving care and long-term patient outcomes.
The Kolling Institute’s Professor Sarah Hilmer will lead the large-scale study involving hospitals and universities across Australia as well as international investigators.
Professor Hilmer said the five-year project will develop real-time frailty monitoring technology to help tackle one of the biggest challenges facing older people.
“As we age, our risk of frailty increases, and we know that frail older people in hospital have a high chance of experiencing an adverse event, like confusion or a fall,” she said.
“The technology that we are researching will use existing data from the electronic medical records to measure the Frailty Index, and this will automatically and efficiently screen hospital patients for frailty.
“Identification of frailty is the essential first step to providing frailty-informed health care. It will also inform health services about the facilities, resources and staff required to meet the needs of people with frailty.
“On an individual basis, it means patients will receive specialised, multidisciplinary care, including the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment model of care, where patients are more likely to continue living at home and less likely to be in a nursing home up to a year after their stay in hospital.”
The screening may be used for observational research or clinical trials of optimal therapies for people living with frailty.
Professor Hilmer said the research project will help to bring models of care in line with international guidelines which strongly recommend that all older people are screened for frailty.
“I am delighted to lead a strong, multidisciplinary, national and international team to develop the crucial technology we need for frailty screening of older people in hospital.
“By automating frailty screening, health services and health professionals will be able to focus on providing optimal care tailored to the needs of frail older people, rather than spending precious time on manual screening.”
The introduction of the automatic hospital screening will mark the first time the Frailty Index has been adopted in acute hospital care on such a large scale.
The project has been developed following support from the Sydney Health Partners Geriatric Medicine Clinical Academic Group.