Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care Program: Final Evaluation Report
5.3 - Other activities to build clinical capacity
- Key Messages
- Executive Summary
- About This Report
1 - Introduction- 2 - Evidence, Changes in Practice and the EBPRAC Program
- 3 - Program Delivery/Implementation
- 4 - Program Impact
5 - Capacity Building- 6 - Generalisability
- 7 - Sustainability
- 8 - Dissemination
- 9 - Appropriateness
- 10 - Cost Implications for Government and Aged Care Providers
- 11 - Perceptions of High-Level Stakeholders
- 12 - Discussion and Conclusions
- 13 - Recommendations
- References
- Appendices 1 to 6
- Appendices 7 to 12
- Appendices 13 to 17
Ten projects distributed educational materials of one form or another to participating facilities to support capacity building e.g. clinical guidelines and protocols. Other resources were made available to facilities as the resources were developed during the course of projects e.g. the toolkit for undertaking oral health assessments in the oral health care project and evidence summaries in the wound management project.
A number of projects included funding for the purchase of capital equipment to build the capacity of participating facilities to deliver best practice clinical care. The nutrition and hydration project purchased digital scales and a digital camera to assess plate wastage, scales to improve monitoring of residents’ weights; and bread makers, toasters, flour bins and electric knives. The oral health project facilitated access to dental chairs in three facilities; and the falls prevention project purchased equipment such as hip protectors and appropriate beds. The falls prevention project also purchased computers for falls resource nurses to facilitate access to online resources. In recognition of the impact that the built environment can have on behaviours of concern, the behaviour management projects introduced processes to support modifications to the buildings and living spaces of participating facilities.
Development of policies and procedures was also used to build clinical capacity, with the two main areas being those which had a clinical focus, and those which had a change management or knowledge transfer focus. In Round 1, the pain management project sought to incorporate modified pain assessment procedures within quality improvement policies and procedures, and the oral health project found facilities had incorporated oral health assessments of residents as standard procedure upon admission, and as an integral part of the orientation processes for new staff. In Round 2, one of the palliative care projects developed policies and procedures regarding assessment and management of residents with palliative care needs for use by general practitioners.
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