Presenter(s):
Kathleen Brasher; Rachel Winterton; Natalie Gower; Kelly Tamang, This Day & Age, Australia
Abstract
Systemic implementation of integrated care for older people requires changes in multiple components of a health system, including funding models, service delivery, and clinical interactions between older people and their healthcare providers. The Indigo 4Ms Framework aims to provide integrated care through changes at the clinical level. A three-year grant from the Australian Government’s Innovative Models of Care (IMOC) Program, led by Beechworth Health Service, is funding the implementation of the Indigo 4Ms tool for health workers in the primary health settings of five unique, autonomous rural health services across north-eastern Victoria.
The Indigo 4Ms brings together evidence-based guidelines from WHO ICOPE, Australian policy, and practice through four interconnected areas: what matters, medication, mobility, and mental wellbeing, to prevent, slow, or even reverse common age-related difficulties in hearing, seeing, moving, and remembering. Through co-design, older people and healthcare staff developed tools to guide the implementation of the Indigo 4Ms. The John Richards Centre is conducting a realist evaluation of both the effectiveness of the tool and its implementation, utilising a longitudinal, mixed-methods study design.
This presentation reports on initial findings from the monitoring data collected during the first year of implementing the Indigo 4Ms tool. It draws on the interim program theory to explore adaptations to the intervention (the Indigo 4Ms Tool) and the processes used by health services to implement the tool. In doing so, we identify approaches and challenges of incorporating actions to foster healthy ageing into existing models of rural geriatric primary care provision.
Bio(s):
Dr Kathleen Brasher is a research fellow at the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research in the La Trobe Rural Health School.
Kathleen obtained her PhD in the sociology of health and illness at Monash University. Kathleen’s research interests include rural health and well-being in later life, age-friendly environments, program evaluation, participatory methods and community development in rural settings.
Since 2006, Kathleen has been involved in the World Health Organization’s Age-Friendly Communities initiative, providing advice and training across Australia and internationally. Kathleen is a technical advisor to the WHO Global Network for Age-Friendly Cities and Communities. She has co-authored numerous scientific articles, book chapters, and policy and practice resources.
