Project summary
Anglican Community Services in partnership with Wesley Mission and Western Sydney University has been awarded an ARIIA grant for their project ‘Older Persons Wellbeing Networks - a collaborative, stepped care, peer-based approach to navigating life transitions and improving mental wellbeing’.
The Project will implement and evaluate a community based, stepped care, Community Wellbeing Network model of care that encompasses community-dwelling older people acting as agents of change and peer supporters alongside mental health clinicians and community aged care staff, to build mental wellness, self-efficacy to manage life transitions and adverse life events, reduce social isolation and promote engagement in productive ageing activities.
The proposal is a partnership with Wesley Mission (WM), and Anglicare Sydney (AS) and Western Sydney University (WSU), using a pre-post, mixed methods research design. The Project has strong translational research potential as it will produce new evidence on how a community-based approach can optimise well-being outcomes for older people and under what circumstances it is most effective; informing knowledge, practice, and service development related to older persons’ wellbeing.
Project outcomes
Background and Aims
Pneumonia risk, emergency hospital visits, food avoidance, pain, weight loss and social withdrawal can be reduced by improving access to oral health care in aged care. The aim of the project was to develop, deliver and evaluate an app to help develop oral health care plans for aged care residents and to improve the knowledge and skills of both residents and staff in the delivery of oral health care.
What We Did
Amelo Dental, Australian Catholic University and Southern Cross Care QLD collaborated to test the usability and usefulness of the app and in residential aged care.
Outcomes
- Improvements were made to the app to increase its ease of use in the residential aged care setting.
- The app can be used as part of routine care planning to develop and individualised oral health care plan for residents in aged care that includes recommended products and techniques
- Aged care staff wanted more professional development about oral health in aging as well as good oral health technique (i.e., brushing and denture cleaning). As a result, online training modules were developed to be used with the Amelo app.
Impact on Aged Care and Workforce
The new strengthened aged care standards have increased the requirements of aged care providers in the provision of oral healthcare for residents and training for aged care staff ( see Standard 5.5.7 “Guidance” Clinical safety | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission) The app and training resources developed can contribute to aged care providers meeting this requirement by developing care plans for oral hygiene for residents and aged care workers to deliver oral health to people in their care (e.g., techniques for brushing and correct use of products commonly required by older adults).
Resources
The Amelo Oral Health Care ap trailed and adapted in the project can be found here: https://amelo.com.au/.
The training resources developed in the program to be used in conjunction with the Amelo app are as follows (please contact Kieran.flanagan@acu.edu.au for access to these materials):
- Module 1: Introduction to the Aged Care Quality Standards and Oral Health
- Module 2: How to use the Amelo app and protocol to promote oral health care
- Module 3: Oral health and aging
- Module 4: Good Technique for oral health in aged care
Next Steps
We hope to see more aged care agencies use the Amelo app and supporting training modules to enable staff to provide better oral health care. Future research will involve outcomes of worker training and compatibility with validated tools of oral health. We are continuing to develop the app to integrate into existing case management software.
Key contact for further information
For further information about the Amelo app, please contact Dr Paul Ansell.
For Further information about access to the training modules contact A/Prof Kieran Flanagan Kieran.flanagan@acu.edu.au