Objectives: To evaluate whether an alternative model of care in aged care facilities, including in-house general practitioners, influenced health outcomes for residents.

Design: Stepped wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial over 90 weeks (31 December 2012 - 21 September 2014), with a 54-week pre-trial retrospective data period (start: 19 December 2011) and a 54-week post-trial prospective data collection period (to 4 October 2015).

Participants, setting: Fifteen residential aged care facilities operated by Bupa Aged Care in metropolitan and regional cities in four Australian states.

Intervention: Residential aged care facilities sought to recruit general practitioners as staff members; care staff roles were redefined to allow registered nurses greater involvement in care plan development.

Main (primary) outcome measures: Numbers of falls; numbers of unplanned transfers to hospital; polypharmacy.

Results: The new model of care could be implemented in all facilities, but four could not recruit in-house GPs at any time during the trial period. Intention-to-treat analyses found no statistically significant effect of the intervention on the primary outcome measures. Contamination-adjusted intention-to-treat analyses identified that the presence of an in-house GP was associated with reductions in the numbers of unplanned hospital transfers (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.53; 95% CI, 0.43-0.66) and admissions (IRR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.41-0.64) and of out-of-hours GP call-outs (IRR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.36-0.80), but also with an increase in the number of reported falls (IRR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.20-1.58).

Conclusions: Recruiting GPs to work directly in residential aged care facilities is difficult, but may reduce the burden of unplanned presentations to hospitals and increase the reporting of adverse events.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	falls, general practice, health services for the aged, nursing care, polypharmacy
Research Division:	Health Sciences
Research Group:	Health services and systems
Research Field:	Aged health care
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Evaluation of health and support services
Objective Field:	Evaluation of health outcomes
UTAS Author:	Palmer, AJ (Professor Andrew Palmer)
UTAS Author:	Si, L (Mr Lei Si)
UTAS Author:	Robinson, AL (Professor Andrew Robinson)
ID Code:	139146
Year Published:	2020
Web of Science® Times Cited:	10
Deposited By:	Menzies Institute for Medical Research
Deposited On:	2020-05-28
Last Modified:	2021-03-16
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