Using co-design to improve access and quality of hospital-based rehabilitation services for Queenslanders
STARS Physiotherapy Conjoint Research Fellow Dr Niru Mahendran
STARS Physiotherapy Conjoint Research Fellow Dr Niru Mahendran is partnering with past rehabilitation consumers, health professionals and rehabilitation stakeholders to co-design an action plan that hopes to improve access to and quality of rehabilitation services.
A co-design project at the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) is partnering with past consumers, health professionals and rehabilitation stakeholders to improve access to and quality of rehabilitation services for Queensland patients.
The Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) is one of the largest rehabilitation hospitals in the southern hemisphere, with over 4,200 patients accessing its rehabilitation service each year.
STARS Physiotherapy Conjoint Research Fellow Dr Niru Mahendran said that the number of Australians living with disability is increasing, with 5.5 million Australians now living with a long-term disability.
“Hospital based rehabilitation is an effective solution for reducing disability and enabling people to lead meaningful lives after injury and health events,” Dr Mahendran said.
“However, when adults return home from hospital-based rehabilitation, most (87%) are not able to do the things they were previously able to.
“It’s important to recognise our rehabilitation services and teams are working hard within existing resource constraints and ever-changing environments and systems. With patient complexity also on the rise, it’s time for us to check-in and see how we can ‘do rehab differently’.”
Dr Mahendran said improving the quality of and access to rehabilitation services is a global challenge and priority, and his team are in a unique position to work collectively and across diverse sectors to tackle this problem.
“Our team is leveraging off earlier work, and existing partnerships across STARS, RBWH, Jamieson Trauma Institute and The University of Queensland to progress this project,” Dr Mahendran said.
“We will explore the experiences and perspectives of consumers on rehabilitation processes and needs, to improve patient outcomes.
“By bringing together people with lived experience and those who work to deliver and innovate in rehabilitation, we will collaboratively develop and prioritise solutions and co-design ways to improve how we deliver rehabilitation.”
Dr Mahendran said co-design is essential to ensure we are prioritising future initiatives and redesign that meets the needs of our patients and is both feasible and sustainable to implement.
“By harnessing the insights and lived experiences of our healthcare consumers, we aim to develop an action plan to improve service design and ultimately enhance patient experiences and outcomes for thousands of Queenslanders,” he said.
The project is supported by the RBWH Foundation.