- Foreword
- Message from Board Chair & Chief Executive
- 2023 Clinical Research Fellowships
- A message from the RBWH Foundation
- A message from The Common Good
- Metro North Research Excellence Awards
- Research stories
- ICU of the Future
- New approach ruling out pulmonary embolism
- Improving access to healthcare in the prison environment
- Safety and efficacy of peripheral versus centrally administered vasopressor infusion
- COVID-19 learnings set to inform future policy
- Telomere study could provide key to treating debilitating lung disease
- Productive Ward – Releasing time to care
- Brain organoids to revolutionise epilepsy treatment
- Reducing weight stigma in maternity care
- Parkinson’s Disease Check-In program giving people a voice
- Trial brings new treatment for common heart condition
- Teledentistry study shows promise in residential aged care
- Research fellow to boost Oral Health evidence-based care
- Study explores best approach to surgery for painful shoulder osteoarthritis
- The development and pilot testing of a stroke telerehabilitation decision toolkit
- Metro North Health delivers world-first breast scaffold surgery
- Regenerative jawbone hard at work care of collaborative Metro North Health approach
- Jamieson Trauma Institute leads e-scooter and e-bike injury research to drive community safety
- Forgotten fathers in pregnancy and obstetrics
- Putting the Spotlight on nursing and midwifery research
- Improving the health self-efficacy of stroke survivors
The development and pilot testing of a stroke telerehabilitation decision toolkit
A new toolkit is being developed to improve outcomes of rehabilitation following stroke, with input from researchers and clinicians at the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS).
On average, stroke survivors receive five hours of community rehabilitation after being discharged from hospital. These five hours are intended to cover all aspects of rehabilitation including physiotherapy, speech pathology and occupational therapy. Evidence suggests that high intensity rehabilitation is required to optimise stroke recovery outcomes.
Although telerehabilitation was in use before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic saw a rapid and widespread uptake of delivering stroke services via telerehabilitation. Telerehabilitation has several potential advantages including delivering rehabilitation close to home, improving patient flow and supporting patient-and-family-centred care.
Despite the increase in telerehabilitation during the pandemic, there was limited accessible guidance on how to deliver in-person rehabilitation via telerehabilitation and the potential legal, safety and security requirements.
Dr Annie Hill, Speech Pathology Conjoint Senior Research Fellow in the STARS Education and Research Alliance, is leading a project funded by the three Queensland Clinical Networks – Stroke, Rehabilitation and Rural and Remote – to develop and test a toolkit which enables clinicians to align the Stroke Foundation’s Clinical Guidelines and patient goals with the technological features needed to deliver the rehabilitation task.
A co-design methodology was used for the first phase, involving researchers and clinicians with expertise in telerehabilitation and stroke rehabilitation, to determine the design and content of the toolkit. Clinicians were asked about their experiences delivering telerehabilitation and their needs in determining which patient goals can be successfully delivered through telerehabilitation.
In phase two, the toolkit will be pilot tested at STARS to evaluate its usability, feasibility and acceptability. Clinicians will be trained in how to use the telerehabilitation decision toolkit and supported in their use of it.
The toolkit has enormous potential for use throughout Queensland, particularly as there are many patients living in rural and remote areas where there is little to no access to specialised stroke care. It is anticipated the toolkit will also allow clinicians to confidently identify patients and their goals that are suitable for telerehabilitation, choose the types of technology appropriate to an individual patient’s needs and identify considerations regarding the legal, safety and security directions from Queensland Health.