About the project

This 3-year mixed-methods project and intervention, funded by the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation’s Translational Grants Challenge, is undertaken in collaboration with a co-Chief Investigator at the University of Western Australia and co-investigators and collaborators at Edith Cowan University, The Canberra Hospital, Hollywood Private Hospital and Joondalup Health Campus.

Chronic disease is a major cause of illness, disability and mortality for Australians. One in two Australians lives with one or more chronic diseases, and 89% of deaths are attributed to chronic conditions. Chronic diseases also cause 250,000 preventable readmissions to hospital each year, costing Australian health systems more than $320 million. More than half of these readmissions are preventable.

Heart failure (HF), one of the most prevalent chronic cardiovascular conditions, impacts the lives of an estimated 476,000 Australians. Vulnerable people such as those with economic disadvantage and lower health literacy and empowerment experience higher rates of HF and related hospitalisations, and lower rates of evidence-based treatment. Rates of hospitalisation are 20% higher for the lowest socio-economic groups, suggesting that many Australians face barriers to self-managing their HF condition.

To self-manage effectively, people need the communication skills to source, understand, evaluate and apply knowledge about their condition (health literacy) and the motivation and confidence to accept shared responsibility for their care (empowerment). This three-year mixed-methods project will:

1. measure 300 patients’ health literacy, empowerment, quality of life and knowledge of HF at admission, 3 and 6 months;
2. analyse actual consultations between clinicians for a subset of 60 HF patients across 3 hospital sites over six-months;
3. develop an interventional toolkit of communication resources for patients and clinicians to improve HF patients’ health literacy, empowerment and self-management; and
4. use implementation science (plan-do-study-act cycles) and health economics to analyse the sustained impact of broader implementation of the communication intervention at participating sites on readmission rates and length of stay, to inform assessment of the return on investment.

This project will benefit patients and care delivery by improving the ability of people living with HF to optimally self-manage their condition by investigating and enhancing the communication practices implicated in health literacy and empowerment.

Project team

• Professor Diana Slade, ANU Institute for Communication in Health Care
• Professor Christopher Etherton-Beer, UWA/Royal Perth Hospital
• Dr Philip Currie, Cardiovascular Services, WA
• Dr Nilufeur McKay, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Edith Cowan University
• Dr Susy Macqueen, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
• Dr Rosemary Saunders, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Edith Cowan University; Hollywood Private Hospital
• Professor Peter Schulz, Universite della svizzeria italiana (USI); University of Lugano, Switzerland
• Professor Walter Abhayaratna, ACT Health, The Canberra Hospital; Australian National University; Australian Medical Association (ACT); National Heart Foundation of Australia
• Karol Edge, Director of Clinical Services, Hollywood Private Hospital
• Christopher Rouen, Health Economist, James Cook University

Publications

• Forthcoming.

Project contact

Professor Diana Slade
diana.slade@anu.edu.au