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INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research

An International Network to Enhance Older Adult Transitions between Emergency Departments & Communities (iNET)

Alternative title: Et internasjonalt forskernettverk for å forbedre pasientforløp mellom legevakt/akuttmottak og de kommunale helse- og omsorgstjenestene

Awarded: NOK 4.5 mill.

iNET has contributed to establishing a world-class network of researchers, healthcare decision makers and providers, and students with the collective expertise to develop and test strategies to improve older adult care transitions from the community to emergency departments (hospital and community based) and back. Team members have collaborated in defining best care transition practices and evaluation methods, and in assessing ways in which different healthcare policies and structures impact these practices. We have identified and explored existing administrative data systems that are available to directly compare how different kinds of care transitions work, and through a major RCN research project established through the iNET activities, Knowledge to action (K2), we have started to analyze data from Norwegian administrative systems and are soon starting up with doing the same with Canadian data, from the province of Manitoba. Network activities have consisted of five 3-day workshops interspersed with student training plus faculty exchanges, with the two first workshop being arranged online, due to the event of Covid-19. We have submitted a scoping review related to quality enhancement of care transfers from nursing homes to hospitals to an international scientific journal, and furthermore, a systematic work to investigate contextual differences between Manitoba, Canada, and Norway that influence care transitions from nursing homes. The project is led by the Centre for Care Research ? Western Norway, at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), with two Canadian institutions, the University of Manitoba, UM; the University of Alberta, and NORCE (National Centre for Emergency Primary Care) as partners.

iNET has addressed one of the 17 United Nations sustainability goals (Goal 3, Good health and Well-being), specifically by aiming to improve older adult transitional care. The activities carried out during the project period align with priority documents in Norway (i.e., The Coordination Care Reform), Canada (CIHR’s Transitions in Care Platform), and the recently announced Canada-EU Smart Living Environment Initiative designed to enhance care transitions for aging people. Each of these documents emphasize the need to enrich community-based care options for higher risk individuals, to improve care coordination between communities and EDs/hospitals when the need arises, and more generally to ensure that high caliber research is available to help develop, sustain, and scale-up highly effective transition practices. Our team of researchers, healthcare planners and practitioners have collaborated extensively to enrich the transactional space between research and practice, to ensure proper treatment at the right place and time. Most of the activities in this project has involved practitioners and decision-makers from all three jurisdictions, Norway and the two Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. The decision-makers have been recruited both from the level of jurisdiction (in the case of Norway, the Directorate of Health) and from the level of local government (municipalities). This all have ensured that decision-makers and practitioners have 1. Influenced the project planning and activities, 2. Contributed to student learning, 3. Shared results from project activities with colleagues in local and national/province government and in practice sites like hospitals, EDs and municipal health care services.

iNET relates to and builds on two ongoing projects funded by the Research Council of Norway and led by the Centre for Care Research (CCR) at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL): WELCARE (2019-24) and (PRIMORE (2018-21), see attached project description for details. Each of these projects study manners to improve ED transitions for older adults. iNET builds thematically on these projects and fulfills the objectives of INTPART by (1) engaging with two well-known Canadian institutions (the University of Manitoba, UM; the University of Alberta; UA), both of which are renowned for their international research and faculty with established relevant expertise; (2) ensuring that iNET engages formally across institutions to help optimize and sustain our program success; (3) interacting with healthcare stakeholders in ways that help to ensure that our products have ‘real-world’ impact, and; (4) improving post-graduate student training (e.g., advancing curricula; providing international exchanges; creating international co-advisory committees), to successfully train future health services research leaders. iNET will create a world-class network of researchers, healthcare decision makers & providers, and students with the collective expertise to develop and test strategies to improve older adult care transitions from the community (comm) to emergency departments (ED) / hospitals (H) and back (comm?ED/H) (TABLE 1) . Network activities will consist of five 3-day workshops interspersed with student training plus faculty exchanges. Team members will first collaborate to define best comm?ED/H transition practices & evaluation methods, second will assess the ways in which different healthcare policies & structures impact these practices, and third will identify existing administrative data systems that are available to directly compare how different kinds of comm?ED/H transitions work.

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Funding scheme:

INTPART-International Partnerships for Excellent Education and Research