Awardee: Dr Abby Haynes
Affiliation: University of Sydney
Grant: $19,958
Delivering exercise in aged care services to improve quality of life: Co-designing the TOP-UP program app
Dr Abby Haynes is a qualitative researcher with a background in social work and diversity health in Australia and the UK. She has a PhD in public health, and an MA in information and knowledge management. She leads the qualitative community of practice at the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, where her work in healthy ageing and physical activity focuses on understanding how and why interventions work (or not) from the perspectives of health professionals and consumers. This is informed by interests in systems thinking, realist evaluation and multidisciplinary collaboration, including with consumers, service providers and policymakers.
The aim of this project is to co-design a digital app to increase the ease and reach of delivery of the successful TOP-UP program in residential and home aged care services. It builds on successful research conducted by a multidisciplinary, cross-sector stakeholder collaboration that includes aged care providers and will provide them with a fit-for-purpose program and delivery app that has been developed and tested by their stakeholders in their service contexts. The TOP-UP app will address equity by increasing access to physiotherapy services and an individually tailored exercise program, especially for those living in rural and underserved areas where these services are rare.