Improving hospital care for older people

Older people are our main hospital inpatient group, yet they continue to suffer avoidable hospital-acquired harm because our models and environments of care have not adapted appropriately to their particular and predictable needs. In this seminar, Professor Mudge will discuss ageing and frailty, the implications these have for hospital inpatient care and evidence for how we can provide better care, as well as the barriers we face to providing age-friendly hospital care. She will provide examples of care models, environmental changes and policy approaches that are improving patient care. She hopes to inspire confidence in multidisciplinary collaboration and advocacy that are needed to ensure better care for older Australians in hospital.

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About the presenter

Professor Alison Mudge

Alison is a general physician, health services researcher and educator based at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and Professor at the University of Queensland. Her mission is improving the care, experience and outcomes of older people in hospital. She developed and is the clinical lead for the Eat Walk Engage® program, a ward-based multidisciplinary delirium prevention program which has been successfully implemented in 19 Queensland hospitals. She serves on the steering committee of the Queensland Dementia, Ageing and Frailty Network and leads a multidisciplinary research team embedded in the healthcare system, collaborating on more than 100 peer reviewed papers and several book chapters.