New palliative care research scholarship

Australia’s leading home care specialist, Silverchain, has partnered with The University of Western Australia (UWA) to award a National Industry PhD Program Researcher Scholarship to allied health clinician Baldwin Kwan.

The four-year research project will develop a digital falls prevention program, with supportive education, for people receiving specialist palliative care at home.

Falls are a major public health issue and a leading cause of hospitalisations in palliative care. Traditional falls prevention guidelines exist for older people, but they do not account for the complex systems, medications, and unique environmental challenges of end-of-life care at home.

Silverchain’s National Director of Research & Evidence, Adjunct Professor Karen Smith OAM, said the project reflects the organisation’s clinical priorities and commitment to evidence-based health care.

“Partnering with The University of Western Australia through the National Industry PhD Program allows us to foster exceptional talent like Baldwin to address quality improvement and greater safety for our clients,” Adj Prof Smith said.

Falls-prevention researcher Professor Anne-Marie Hill, from the WA Centre for Health and Ageing at UWA, said WA’s hospital emergency departments tended to tens of thousands of falls every year, with falls costing the state’s economy more than half a billion dollars per year.

“Quite apart from this substantial cost to the health system, the personal cost to those affected by falls is profound,” Professor Hill said.

“We are pleased to partner with Silverchain in ensuring our ongoing falls-prevention research is translated into such an important program – one which will provide people in palliative care with the best possible information and care in their homes.”

The project will leverage a ten year linked dataset of over 23,000 community specialist palliative care clients to quantify the health care costs and risk factors of falls. Baldwin will also conduct a literature review and interview clients, carers, and staff to co-design and pilot the digital intervention.

Scholarship recipient Baldwin Kwan, a qualified physiotherapist who has spent five years at Silverchain across the aged care and research and innovation teams, said the inspiration for the research came directly from his clinical experience.

“I am incredibly honoured to receive this industry PhD scholarship and to work alongside world-leading research teams at UWA and Silverchain,” Mr Kwan said.

“The research idea came from a palliative care client who asked whether physiotherapy and exercise could safely prevent falls given his illness. When I reviewed the international literature, I realised home care research has been largely neglected compared with residential aged care or hospital settings.

“Focusing this project on home care is a unique opportunity to build practical, scalable tools that will help Silverchain’s palliative care clients be cared for safely at home and die in their place of preference, surrounded by their loved ones.”