Joanne Tropea1
1Department of Aged Care, Royal Melbourne Hospital
Biography:
Dr Jo Tropea (PhD, MPH, BPhysio) is a researcher at the Department of Aged Care, Royal Melbourne Hospital, and honorary researcher at the Department of Medicine – RMH, University of Melbourne. Jo has a clinical background in physiotherapy and is a health services researcher and emerging implementation scientist. Her research interests centre on delivering evidence-based care for older people with a vision to transform the quality of care for older people in hospital, residential aged care, and for those living with dementia.
Abstract:
IMMERSE-2 builds on the Victorian-based pilot of a community of practice for Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Leads. The pilot brought together IPC Leads from 20 residential aged care homes in Victoria to share peer-to-peer learning, resources related to their role, and to provide support for each other structured in a way that best suited the group. Online meetings were held monthly around preferred topics identified by the group. IPC Leads reported that the community of practice approach was appealing and were positive about engaging with other IPC Leads and having the opportunity for peer engagement, learning, expert input, and problem solving. Time and competing demands were a barrier to participating. IMMERSE-2 aims to scale up to multiple communities of practice for IPC Leads across Australia. Using a co-design approach, communities of practice will be developed with IPC Leads, residential aged care managers and quality staff to maximise uptake and participation. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the communities of practice on IPC Leads’ self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and practice change. The acceptability and feasibility, including cost-benefits will be assessed. This presentation will discuss the IMMERSE-2 project, preliminary findings from the co-design workshops and how IPC Leads can be involved.