RESEARCH
Centre of Research Excellence
Improving Hospital Outcomes for Frail Patients Across Different Disciplines
Frail patients are often harmed in hospitals, and Australia’s tertiary care system is ill-equipped to cater for the increasing number of middle-aged and older adults with multiple co-morbidities and complex health problems.
The Improving Hospital Outcomes for Frail Patients Across Different Disciplines Centre of Research Excellence (Frailty-ADD CRE) is a five-year, multidisciplinary program that systematically addresses key barriers to frailty-informed care for hospital patients.
This program of research works to improve hospital outcomes for frail patients by helping healthcare systems understand the impact of frailty on outcomes and costs, developing clinical practice guidelines for frailty informed care across multiple disciplines, developing a core outcome set for frail patients, and upskilling the next generation of researchers and clinicians to continue the legacy of this Centre of Research Excellence.
Six programs of work
The Frailty-ADD CRE is establishing a cutting-edge capacity building scaffold to train the next generation of health and medical researchers with the potential to become leaders in their fields.
The Frailty-ADD CRE includes six research programs. These six interrelated programs and structured capacity building have the potential to transform the care of frail patients in Australian hospitals.
Program 1: Prevalence and outcomes
This program is the first of its kind —globally — to focus on evaluating frailty in hospitals at a large scale. Our aim is to quantify the prevalence of frailty and establish frailty-related outcomes and costs.
Program 2: Pharmaco-epidemiology
This program investigates the relationship between frailty status, medication utilisation, and global health outcomes. Our aim is to analyse medication utilisation and deprescribing patterns according to frailty status.
Program 3: Core outcomes in frail inpatients
The aim of this program is to develop an internationally recognised Core Outcomes Set for frail inpatients that can be used to evaluate frailty interventions across different disciplines.
Program 4: Practice change initiatives
This program aims to empower local leaders to change their practice to provide treatment for inpatients that is appropriate for their level of frailty.
Program 5: Implementation studies
This program aims to undertake implementation studies across different disciplines to test new models of care for frail patients.
Program 6: Education and training
The aim of this program is to increase health care professionals’ and students’ knowledge and understanding of frailty in hospitals.
Study team and funding
This study is funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 2022 Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) grant scheme (APP2015821), with a grant duration of five years.
Professor Ruth Hubbard, Masonic Chair of Geriatric Medicine at the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Queensland, is the Chief investigator for this program of work.
The CRE is led by Donna Reidlinger, CRE Coordinator, and Dr Kristiana Ludlow, CRE Program Coordinating Fellow.
This CRE brings together the world’s leading frailty researchers, and clinicians, educators, and health services researchers who are best placed to deliver on the vision to improve the outcomes for frail hospital inpatients.
List of investigators
Chief Investigators
Institution
Professor Ruth Hubbard
The University of Queensland
Prof Sarah Hilmer
University of Sydney
Prof Kenneth Rockwood
Dalhousie University
Prof Kirsten Howard
University of Sydney
Prof Allison Jaure
University of Sydney
Prof Monika Janda
The University of Queensland
Prof Christopher Etherton-Beer
University of Western Australia
Assoc Prof Danijela Gnjidic
University of Sydney
Prof Kwang Lim
University of Melbourne
Dr Natasha Reid
The University of Queensland
Associate Investigators
Institution
Prof Dan Siskind
The University of Queensland
Prof David Story
University of Melbourne
Dr Kristiana Ludlow
The University of Queensland
Dr Adrienne Young
Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital
A/Prof Rosemary Saunders
Edith Cowan University
A/prof Nicola Warren
Metro South Hospital and Health Service
Dr Emily Gordon
The University of Queensland
Prof Heather Allore
Yale University
Prof Andrew Clegg
University of Leeds
Prof Fiona Lake
University of Western Australia
Please direct any queries to Dr Kristiana Ludlow, CRE Program Coordinating Fellow, at [email protected].
