Two-third of residents who took part in the Regular Early Assessment Post-Discharge (REAP) – seven regular monthly geriatrician and nurse practitioner visits in the six months after being released from hospital – were also two-thirds less likely to be re-admitted and half as likely to end up in the emergency room.
The study by the Department of Aged Care, St George Hospital, Calvary Health Care and UNSW Medicine’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) found the lack of specialist clinical input in facilities was a key factor in re-hospitalisation.
However in 2016, there were just 386 nurse practitioners in Australia making up 0.3% of the aged care workforce – a rare commodity.
