Jj Woodroffe

“A golden opportunity”: Exploring interprofessional learning and practice in rural clinical settings

Abstract Little is known about interprofessional practice (IPP) and interprofessional learning (IPL) in rural health services, despite national funding and continuing emphasis on increasing students’ clinical placements in rural areas. This short paper outlines a study in Tasmania, Australia, which investigated how and under what contexts and conditions IPP and IPL occur in rural clinical settings, and the enabling factors and strategies that promote this learning and practice. This study employed a mixed method design comprising focus group discussions and a survey involving health professionals from two rural health services. The findings demonstrate that formal and informal arrangements, the collaborative nature of small, close-knit healthcare teams and patient-centred models of care employed in rural practice settings, provide ideal contexts for IPP and IPL. The study has implications for promoting organisational readiness for IPP and IPL and harnessing the potential of rural services to promote and develop students’ interprofessional capability.

Current Programs and Future Needs in Health Literacy for Older People: A Literature Review

Inadequate health literacy occurs more amongst older adults and can result in difficulties synthesising information and communicating with health professionals, increased emergency visits and hospitalizations, poor uptake of preventative interventions, increased mortality, and ultimately greater health care costs. A literature review was conducted that identified 12 articles that discussed and examined health literacy interventions among older adults. It revealed few papers exist which highlight programs that examine health literacy outcomes for older adults. The review identified evidence-based best-practice models of health literacy interventions need to be further developed to meet the health literacy needs of aging population.

Eating and ageing in rural Australia: applying temporal perspectives from phenomenology to uncover meanings in older adults’ experiences

ABSTRACT Nutritious and enjoyable eating experiences are important for the health and wellbeing of older adults. Social gerontology has usefully engaged with the role of time in older adults’ eating lives, considering how routines and other temporal patterns shape experiences of food, meals and eating. Building on this foundation, the paper details one set of findings from qualitative doctoral research into older adults’ experiences of food, meals and eating. Informed by phenomenological ethnography, it engages with one of four dimensions of the human lifeworld – the temporal dimension. The research involved repeated in-depth interviews, walking interviews and observation with 21 participants aged 72–90 years, living in rural Tasmania, Australia. The temporal elements of older adults’ experiences are detailed in terms of the past, present and future. The findings show that older adults have vivid memories of eating in uncertain and austere times, and these experiences have informed their food values and behaviours into old age. In the present, older adults employ several strategies for living and eating well. Simultaneously, they are oriented towards their uncertain eating futures. These findings reveal the implicit meanings in older adults’ temporal experiences of food, meals and eating, highlighting the importance of understanding older adults’ lifeworlds, and their orientation towards the future, for developing effective responses to concerns about food and eating in this age group.

How do regional and rural general practitioners use the Internet to gather patient information

How do regional and rural general practitioners use the Internet to gather patient information? Jessica A. Marathe, BMedSc(Hons), MBBS, Jessica Woodroffe, BA(Hons), MA, PhD, Kathryn Ogden, MBBS(Hon), MPH, FRACGP, and Clarissa Hughes, BA(Hons), PhD Department of Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, South Australia, Centre for Rural Health, and Launceston Clinical School, University of Tasmania, Tasmania