Frailty is a common syndrome that can affect up to 25% of your patients aged 70 and over.
Frailty can increase your patients’ risk of falls, contribute to longer length of hospital stay, decline in function, increased chance of institutionalisation and death.
Many of the causes of frailty can be managed and, in some cases reversed to create better health outcomes and quality of life for your patients.
The Initiative
Sydney North Health Network, Brisbane South PHN and The University of Queensland are partnering with general practices to Identify Risk of Frailty in General Practice. This study will use the Frail Scale, while completing a 75yr old health assessment to screen all patients.
Our study aims to determine the impact of screening as a tool to identify risk of frailty in patients at general practices; and the implementation of a management plan and collaboration with services required in the community to support those at risk and their carers.
Practices will be supported to screen patients for early identification and develop pathways to appropriate evidence-based management, then re-screen at risk patients again after 12 months.
What is involved in the Frailty Analysis Study?
- Practices must agree to screen for frailty using the Frail Scale for eligible patients aged 75 and over, then rescreen positive patients after 12 months.
- Practices must be able to utilise Primary Sense.
- Practices must be willing to:
- Include the frailty score using templates in their current clinical software programs.
- Provide de-identified data to SNHN for use within the research study.
- Record data on patient scores, diagnosis, and referral information.
- Participate in evaluation surveys and interviews with SNHN and The University of Queensland.
- Incentive payments will be provided and payable each month after the data forms are received with a minimum number of patients screened (to be agreed with the practice)
How to Express Interest
To express your interest in participating, please complete the form here.
For more information on Frailty and the frailty screening and management tools please refer to our website, or if you would like more information, please contact Debra Clark, Aged Care Lead: dclark@snhn.org.au