Bolton Clarke Research Institute

Better Evidence: Better Health and Wellbeing

The Bolton Clarke Research Institute is our own research and innovation hub.

It has forged a national and international reputation for high impact community health and aged care research.

Our Research Institute identifies practical solutions to enable greater independence, quality of life and choice about healthcare options for our customers and the wider community.

Our four key principles place people at the centre of our approach:

Person-centred: ensuring that all care respects and is tailored to the needs, values and preferences of the individual whether a client, resident, family member, carer or a member of the wider community
Co-design: bringing together the experience of all stakeholders to identify opportunities for improvement and make changes to a service, program, product or system
Translate research into practice: moving current research and evidence into routine care through knowledge translation and implementation
National approach: our research program has a national focus across home care, retirement living and residential aged care

Ultimately, our research aims to support our clients' ability to lead fuller and more satisfying lives with support from Bolton Clarke at home support, residential aged care and retirement living services.

Our research priorities

Our research projects concentrate on four key areas that underpin healthy ageing.

Optimising health and wellbeing

Improving management of common chronic conditions
Identifying, developing and evaluating preventative activities to support people to stay as independent as possible

Combatting loneliness and isolation

Services and supports identifying, addressing and/or preventing loneliness and isolation in older people

Addressing mental health

Assisting people experiencing mental ill-health such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse; and their family and care providers

Evaluating the implementation of assistive technology

Co-designing the implementation and evaluation of technologies to maintain and improve function and independence

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About the Team

The Bolton Clarke Research Institute comprises a multi-disciplinary team of research fellows and officers, and is underpinned by a strong governance framework including an ethics committee.

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Our research publications and conference presentations

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More about research at Bolton Clarke

Current projects

The BCRI is currnetly conducting a range of research projects and initiatives:

Barriers and enablers to delivering optimal dementia care: Perceptions of community nurses

Being Your Best: An innovative approach to frailty and care transitions

Challenges and opportunities for the multicultural aged care workforce

Complex Care Clients

Digital Wallpaper

EACH: Epidemiological analysis of community and Aged Care Health data

Enabling Choices: Enabling wellbeing by providing choices for people with dementia and memory loss

Evaluating Enhanced Palliative Care

Foot health service linkage for people experiencing homelessness

Gait Aid Use: Is there a role for gait aids to improve stability and reduce falls risk for older people with dementia?

HOW-R-U?: Telephone Peer Support for Isolated Individuals in the Community

Keeping Skin Strong

Let's Dig In!

Life Stories Project

Mind the Gap! Respite care and transition to permanent residential care for people living with dementia and informal carers

Peer support for Older WomEn to pRomote wellbeing and independence (POWER)

Redesigning Texture Modified Foods to Bring Back the Joy of Eating

WEAVE: Weaving Evidence into Action for Veterans with dementia

Completed projects

Research projects recently completed by the Institute include:

By Your Side

Cycling Without Age

Consumer Directed Care and Workforce Retention

Falls Prevention for people with diabetes

Focus on Wellness and Reablement in At-Home Support

Health and wellbeing survey in retirement living

Keeping feet healthy with diabetes

Narrow Band imaging to predict the likelihood of healing venous leg ulcers

National advance care directive prevalence study

Non-pharmacological interventions for people with dementia

Older Women Living Alone (OWLA): Understanding and optimising wellbeing and aged care services

OPTIMISES – Older people living with Type 2 diabetes

Redesigning texture modified foods to bring back the joy of eating

Understanding older veterans in the community: Addressing post-traumatic mental health

Timely Enhanced Access to Medication Management (TEAMM): Pharmacist workforce model trial

Veteran Family Mental Wellbeing Series

Conducting research with Bolton Clarke

The BCRI welcomes collaboration with external researchers to undertake research at Bolton Clarke.

All research undertaken at Bolton Clarke must include involvement and collaboration with the BCRI from the early stages of project development, and:

Be relevant to our communities, staff, organisation and the broader aged care industry;
Fill a gap in existing research/knowledge, with the aim of leading to positive change in care delivery;
Have the approval of the Bolton Clarke HREC and the relevant Bolton Clarke stream business leader (facilitated by BCRI).

All research project applications must undergo a 3 step review process, where appropriate, before commencement. The Research Review and Governance Committee (RRGC) Co-ordinator will facilitate this process and field any enquiries about Research Governance at BC, contact the RRGC Co-ordinator.

For information about whether the project is a Quality Improvement or a research project, please review the following document:

Quality Improvement and Levels of Risk Checklist

For comprehensive detail about this process and the RRGC please see:

To learn more about the RRGC Process, hear from Dr Rajna Ogrin

Please submit research proposals approximately 4 weeks prior to HREC meeting dates, preferably earlier to engage in a process of codesign with BCRI.

Step 1: Initial review

An initial review of your proposal will be conducted by the RRGC, the relevant Business Stream lead and Head of Research, to assess the proposal for relevance and capacity within the business. Allow 2 weeks to complete this step.

To facilitate this step please send the follow documents to the RRGC Co-ordinator:

Preliminary Research Project Overview form
A one page project summary in lay language

Step 2: Peer Review

After RRGC, Business Stream and Head of Research approvals have been obtained at Step 1, your research proposal will undergo peer review by members of the BCRI and relevant experts within the organization. The peer review will be facilitated by the RRGC Co-ordinator and requires 2 weeks.

The following documents will be required for the peer review:

NHMRC Human Research Ethics Application(HREA) (or equivalent)
Protocol
Any promotion material
PICFs (see PICF Guidance and Template)
Previous HREC letters
Funding Details

The review process will identify whether the project is suitable to progress to:

HREC review with no or minimal changes required - applicants will be advised what changes, if any, would be appropriate; or
requires amendments as advised by BCRI reviewers and re-review by the RRGC Co-ordinator - the review process will continue until the application meets the requirements for HREC submission; or
not suitable to progress to HREC review - the application cannot proceed to HREC submission.

Step 3: HREC

The RRGC Co-ordinator will facilitate your submission to the HREC and ensure all the required documentation is provided. All documents listed in the HREC Checklist will need to be completed.

Find out more information about the Bolton Clarke HREC

Information for Consumers

Bolton Clarke wants to work with the people we support to make sure that we keep improving the care and services we provide for you and others in the community. Research is an essential part of making these improvements.

For more information about how research at Bolton Clarke works see:

For Community Members - Taking Part in Research

28 February 2020

Co‐creation of services to maintain independence and optimise well‐being: Learnings from Australia’s Older Women Living Alone (OWLA) project

For many populations at risk of social isolation, including Older Women Living Alone (OWLA), existing services to maintain independence and optimise well‐being are difficult to access, unsuitable or unavailable. We adapted an existing framework for co‐creation and used participatory action research methods, supported by an evidence base comprising a systematic review, analysis of routinely collected data and interviews, to develop person‐centred services for OWLA.

Elder Abuse in the Out-of-Hospital and Emergency Department Settings: A Scoping Review

This scoping review aimed to synthesize the available evidence on the epidemiology, patient- and caregiver-associated factors, clinical characteristics, screening tools, prevention, interventions, and perspectives of health care professionals in regard to elder abuse in the out-of-hospital or emergency department (ED) setting.

Uniting generations: A research protocol examining the impacts of an intergenerational learning program on participants and organisations

Intergenerational programs are known to enhance engagement between generations, improve health and well‐being and create a stronger sense of community. This paper describes the research protocol used to develop, implement and evaluate an intergenerational learning program for preschool‐aged children and older people attending care services.

Interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of older people living alone: a mixed-methods systematic review of effectiveness and accessibility

The global population is ageing and the likelihood of living alone increases with age. Services are necessary to help older people living alone to optimise health and wellbeing. This systematic review aimed to summarise the effectiveness and accessibility of interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of older people living alone.

The inter-relationship of diversity principles for the enhanced participation of older people in their care: a qualitative study

The health and aged care workforce must understand and support the diverse needs of older people to enhance their care experience. This study aims to explore how these principles are considered from the perspectives of older Australians.