scholarly journals Place4Carers: a mixed-method study protocol for engaging family caregivers in meaningful actions for successful ageing in place

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. e037570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guendalina Graffigna ◽  
Serena Barello ◽  
Niccolò Morelli ◽  
Eleonora Gheduzzi ◽  
Massimo Corbo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Family Caregivers ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Ageing In Place ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Scoping Literature Review ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas ◽  
Older Citizens

IntroductionEngaging family caregivers could be a critical asset to make the ‘ageing-in-place’ imperative a reality. This is particularly evident in rural and remote areas, where caregivers can fill the gaps that exist due to the fragmentation of the welfare system. However, there is little knowledge about the expectations that family caregivers have from healthcare services in rural and remote areas.Place4Carers (P4C) project aims to co-produce an innovative organisational model of social and healthcare services for family caregivers of older citizens living in Vallecamonica (Italy). The project is expected to facilitate ageing-in-place for older citizens, thus helping caregivers in their daily care activities.Methods and analysisP4C is a community-based participatory research project featuring five work packages (WPs). WP1 consists of a survey of unmet needs of caregivers and older people receiving services in Vallecamonica. WP2 consists of a scoping literature review to map services that provide interventions of support to caregivers living in remote areas and promote engagement. WP3 organises co-creation workshops with caregivers to co-design, co-manage, and co-assess ideas and proposals for shaping caregiver-oriented services and organisational models. WP3 enriches the results of WP1 (survey) and WP2 (scoping literature review), and aims to co-create new ideas for intervention support with and for caregivers in relation to the objectives, features and characteristics of a new service able to address the caregivers’ needs and expectations. WP4 tests the service ideas co-created in WP3 through piloting an intervention based on ideas co-created with caregivers. Finally, WP5 assesses the transferability of the intervention to other similar contexts.Ethics and disseminationThe study has been approved by the Ethics Committees of the Department of Psychology of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Politecnico of Milan. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, scientific meetings and meetings with the general population.

scholarly journals Quality of Telehealth Services in Delivery of Paediatric Surgical Care in Australia: A Systematic Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Josephine De Costa ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Surgical Care ◽  
Paediatric Surgery ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas ◽  
Access To Medical Care ◽  
Improve Access

Telehealth services are commonly used in many aspects of medicine to improve access to medical care for populations in rural and remote regions, and can and do play an important role in ensuring equitable access to paediatric surgery in Australia’s more rural and remote areas.

scholarly journals Learning and Use of eHealth Among Older Adults Living at Home in Rural and Nonrural Settings: Systematic Review (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ella Airola
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Impaired Hearing ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas

BACKGROUND Care policies emphasize deinstitutionalization and <i>aging in place</i> in response to demographic changes. Different eHealth technologies are one way to achieve this aim. However, there is a need to better understand older adults’ needs for eHealth services, and thus, these health solutions require further exploration. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this systematic literature review is to appraise, synthesize, and summarize the literature on older adults’ (aged ≥60 years) eHealth learning and use in real home settings, particularly in rural and remote areas, with a focus on the social and cultural context. METHODS A systematic search was conducted in January 2020 using 4 academic databases. The studies by means of qualitative thematic analysis to identify the barriers, enablers, and support practices involved in the domestication process were examined. In addition, we identified the various meanings attached to eHealth technologies for older adults living in rural and remote areas. RESULTS In total, 31 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2020 were included in this review. A total of 17 articles included participants from rural and remote areas. The most regularly reported barriers related to older adults’ learning to use and use of eHealth were health-related difficulties, such as cognitive impairment or impaired hearing. The most reported enabler was the support provided for older adults in learning and use of eHealth. Support mainly comprised older adults’ own digital competences, which were distributed with their social network. It was found that eHealth technology is needed for rural and remote areas to facilitate access and reduce logistical barriers to health care services. CONCLUSIONS The literature review provided information and practical implications for designers, health care providers, and policy makers. On the basis of these findings, eHealth technologies should be easy to use, and adequate support should be provided to older adults for use.

scholarly journals Grey Nomad’ Travellers’ Use of Remote Health Services in Australia: A Qualitative Enquiry of Hospital Managers’ Perspectives 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Yates ◽  
Lin Perry ◽  
Jenny Onyx ◽  
Tracy Levett-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Healthcare Needs ◽  
Recreational Vehicles ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background For more than the last two decades, older Australians travelling domestically in self-sufficient accommodation and recreational vehicles for extended periods of time have been referred to as ‘Grey Nomads’. By 2021 more than 750,000 such recreational vehicles were registered in Australia. Tourism data for the year to September 2017 show 11.8 million domestic camping and caravanning trips in Australia, 29% of which were people aged 55 and over. As the ‘baby boomer’ generation increasingly comes to retirement, the size of this travelling population is growing. This growing group of domestic travellers are potential healthcare consumers in remote areas but relatively little is known about their travel, healthcare needs or care seeking practices. Grey nomads have been described as reflective of the age-comparable sector of the Australian population in that many live with chronic illness. Early concerns were raised that they may “burden” already stretched rural and remote healthcare services but relatively little is known about the impact of these travellers.Methods The aim of this study was to explore the utilisation of healthcare services in rural and remote locations in Australia by grey nomads, from the perspective of healthcare professionals working in these settings. The study objective was to interview healthcare professionals to seek their experience and details of service delivery to grey nomads. In March 2020 [prior to state border closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic] a field study was conducted to identify the impact of grey nomads on healthcare services in remote New South Wales and Queensland. A qualitative approach was taken to explore the perspectives of nursing healthcare managers working in remote towns along a popular travel route. With appropriate Research Ethics Committee approval, managers were purposively sampled and sample size was determined by data saturation. Thirteen managers were contacted and twelve interviews were scheduled to take place face to face in the healthcare facilities at mutually convenient times. A semi-structured interview schedule was developed in line with the research aim. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and thematic analysis was undertaken concurrently with data collection for ongoing refinement of questions and to address emerging issues. Results These nursing managers described a strong service and community ethos. They regarded travellers’ healthcare needs no differently to those of local people and described their strong commitment to the provision of healthcare services for their local communities, applying an inclusive definition of community. Traveller presentations were described as predominantly exacerbations of chronic illness such as chest pain, medication-related attendances, and accidents and injuries. No hospital activity data for traveller presentations were available as no reports were routinely generated. Travellers were reported as not always having realistic expectations about what healthcare is available in rural and remote areas and arriving with mixed levels of preparedness. Most travellers were said to be well-prepared for their travel and self-management of their health. However, the healthcare services that can be provided in rural and remote areas needed to be better understood by travellers from metropolitan areas and their urban healthcare providers.Conclusion Participants did not perceive travellers as a burden on health services but recommendations were made regarding their expectations and preparedness. Australia’s national transition to electronic health records including a patient - held record was identified as a future support for continuity of care for travellers and to facilitate treatment planning. With no current information to characterise traveller presentations, routinely collected hospital data could be extracted to characterise this patient population, their presentations and the resources required to meet their care needs.

scholarly journals A Possible Smart Metering System Evolution for Rural and Remote Areas Employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Internet of Things in Smart Grids

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1627
Author(s):  
Giovanni Battista Gaggero ◽  
Mario Marchese ◽  
Aya Moheddine ◽  
Fabio Patrone
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Smart Metering ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Electrical Grid ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Consumption Data ◽  
Rural And Remote Areas

The way of generating and distributing energy throughout the electrical grid to all users is evolving. The concept of Smart Grid (SG) took place to enhance the management of the electrical grid infrastructure and its functionalities from the traditional system to an improved one. To measure the energy consumption of the users is one of these functionalities that, in some countries, has already evolved from a periodical manual consumption reading to a more frequent and automatic one, leading to the concept of Smart Metering (SM). Technology improvement could be applied to the SM systems to allow, on one hand, a more efficient way to collect the energy consumption data of each user, and, on the other hand, a better distribution of the available energy through the infrastructure. Widespread communication solutions based on existing telecommunication infrastructures instead of using ad-hoc ones can be exploited for this purpose. In this paper, we recall the basic elements and the evolution of the SM network architecture focusing on how it could further improve in the near future. We report the main technologies and protocols which can be exploited for the data exchange throughout the infrastructure and the pros and cons of each solution. Finally, we propose an innovative solution as a possible evolution of the SM system. This solution is based on a set of Internet of Things (IoT) communication technologies called Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) which could be employed to improve the performance of the currently used technologies and provide additional functionalities. We also propose the employment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to periodically collect energy consumption data, with evident advantages especially if employed in rural and remote areas. We show some preliminary performance results which allow assessing the feasibility of the proposed approach.

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