
Alison M HutchinsonDeakin University · School of Nursing and Midwifery
Alison M Hutchinson
PhD (Melbourne)
About
276
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
July 2007 - December 2009
January 2005 - June 2009
January 2010 - present
Publications
Publications (276)
Objectives
To describe sociodemographic characteristics and comprehensive day‐to‐day care and support needs of older Victorians requiring government‐funded home‐based aged‐care, and to explore associations between vulnerability factors and complexity indicators in this population.
Methods
A population‐based observational study was conducted using...
Background Models that optimise the role of the general practice nurse have the potential to deliver cost-effective best-practice dementia care in the primary care setting. Patient experience is recognised as a vital contribution to the design, provision and evaluation of healthcare services. The aim of this study was to gain insights into the heal...
Introduction
Clinical practice guidelines are essential tools for standardizing medical practices and improving healthcare quality. However, current guideline implementation is unsatisfactory. Barriers to guideline implementation include external environmental factors (e.g., medical personnel, medical institutions, local policies) and intrinsic cha...
Purpose
Informal caregivers play a pivotal role in providing support to cancer survivors, yet have reported challenges with communicating with health providers to get all the information they need to provide optimal care. We aimed to adapt and pilot test a brief communication skills training program (COMFORT) to improve caregiver-provider communica...
This editorial updates the scope and submission expectations of Implementation Science and Implementation Science Communications . We refine our protocol publishing policies and set out new expectations for reporting studies describing determinants and their relationship with implementation outcomes. Our central focus remains on the implementation...
Introduction
Transitional care of older adults can be highly stressful for informal carers (carers) particularly when they are not involved in preparation and planning with health practitioners. This study aimed to ascertain carer perspectives about the potential acceptability and usability of a tool entitled the TRANSITION tool to support preparat...
Background:
Mental state deterioration poses significant challenges in healthcare, impacting patients and providers. Symptoms like confusion and agitation can lead to prolonged hospital stays, increased costs, and the use of restrictive interventions. Despite its prevalence, there's a lack of consensus on effective practices for managing mental st...
Introduction
Partnering with women is central to maternity care, supported by principles of shared decision making (SDM) and interprofessional collaboration (IPC). The Labouring Together study was conducted to explore women’s and clinicians’ perceptions and experiences of SDM and IPC in maternity care in Victoria, Australia.
Methods
Underpinned by...
Introduction
Partnering with women is central to maternity care, supported by principles of shared decision-making (SDM). This study was conducted to explore perceptions and experiences of SDM and interprofessional collaboration in maternity care in Victoria, Australia. The experiences of women will be presented.
Methods
Underpinned by conceptual...
Introduction
Over 50% of people affected by cancer report unmet support needs. To address unmet information and psychological needs, non-government organisations such as Cancer Councils (Australia) have developed state-based telephone cancer information and support services. Due to competing demands, evidence of the value of these services is neede...
Aim:
To explore patient and family narratives about their recognition and response to clinical deterioration and their interactions with clinicians prior to and during Medical Emergency Team (MET) activations in hospital.
Background:
Research on clinical deterioration has mostly focused on clinicians' roles. Although patients and families can id...
Objectives: Researchers face numerous challenges when recruiting participants for health and social care research. This study reports on the challenges faced recruiting older adults for Being Your Best, a co-designed holistic intervention to manage and reduce frailty, and highlights lessons learnt amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design: A qualitativ...
Mental state deterioration in patients poses significant challenges in healthcare, potentially resulting in adverse outcomes for patients and continued reliance on restrictive interventions. Implementing evidence‐based approaches such as a rapid response system that prioritises early identification and intervention can effectively manage adverse ou...
Introduction
With an aging population and a growing prevalence of people living with dementia, the demand for best-practice dementia care in general practice increases. There is an opportunity to better utilise the nurse role within the primary care team to meet this increasing demand in the provision of care for people living with dementia. Howeve...
Aim
The aim of the systematic review was to identify conceptual models and interventions designed to improve health literacy in caregivers of adults with a chronic disease/disability.
Methods
MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Embase were searched for relevant literature. Articles were included if they focused on adults who provided informal care to so...
Background
Up to 70% of people diagnosed with upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract or hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) cancers experience substantial reductions in quality of life (QoL), including high distress levels, pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, weight loss and difficulty swallowing. With few advocacy groups and support systems for adults with u...
Introduction
Patient mental state deterioration impacts patient outcomes, staff and increases costs for healthcare organisations. Mental state is broadly defined to include not only mental health but a broad range of cognitive, emotional, and psychological well-being factors. Mental state deterioration is inconsistently identified and managed with...
Introduction
Mental state deterioration in patients is a significant problem in acute medical settings that results in adverse outcomes, such as continued use of restrictive interventions (1–3). However, evidence-based early identification and management interventions to mitigate this deterioration require further research, particularly from a caus...
Background
Over 50% of people affected by cancer report unmet support needs. To address unmet information and psychological needs, non-government organisations such as Macmillan Support (UK) and Cancer Councils (Australia) have developed state-based cancer information and support services, including telephone support. Due to competing demands, evid...
Aim:
To explore nurses' perceptions of using point-of-care ultrasound for assessment and guided cannulation in the haemodialysis setting.
Background:
Cannulation of arteriovenous fistulae is necessary to perform haemodialysis. Damage to the arteriovenous fistula is a frequent complication, resulting in poor patient outcomes and increased healthc...
Background
There is growing evidence that context mediates the effects of implementation interventions intended to increase healthcare professionals’ use of research evidence in clinical practice. However, conceptual clarity about what comprises context is elusive. The purpose of this study was to advance conceptual clarity on context by developing...
Australia's national maternity strategy Woman-centred care: strategic directions for Australian maternity services (the Strategy) was released by the federal government in November 2019. It was developed to provide national guidance on the effective provision of woman-centred maternity care. The Strategy is structured around four values of safety,...
Background:
Caregivers play an important role supporting people diagnosed with cancer, yet report significant unmet information and support needs that impact on their psychological wellbeing. Health literacy and social connectedness are key factors that influence wellbeing, yet few studies have examined their relative role in psychological wellbei...
Consolidation of the literature using systematic reviews is a critical way to advance a discipline and support evidence-based decision-making in healthcare. However, unique challenges exist that impact the conduct of systematic reviews in implementation science. In this commentary, we reflect on our combined experience to describe five key challeng...
Aim(s):
To explore vital sign assessment (both complete and incomplete sets of vital signs), and escalation of care per policy and nursing interventions in response to clinical deterioration.
Design:
This cohort study is a secondary analysis of data from the Prioritising Responses of Nurses To deteriorating patient Observations cluster randomise...
Background
Co-production is an umbrella term used to describe the process of generating knowledge through partnerships between researchers and those who will use or benefit from research. Multiple advantages of research co-production have been hypothesized, and in some cases documented, in both the academic and practice record. However, there are s...
Background:
Aortic stenosis (AS) without surgical intervention is associated with morbidity and mortality and is the most common valvular disease in the western world. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a minimally invasive surgical option that has become a common treatment for people unable to undergo open aortic valve replacement;...
Aim:
To synthesise evidence about informal carers' (carers) experience of their support needs, facilitators and barriers regarding transitional care of older adults with multimorbidity.
Background:
Carers provide crucial support for older adults during care transitions. Although health practitioners are well positioned to support carers, system...
Aim:
To examine current literature for causal explanations on how, why and under what circumstances, implementation of a new hospital electronic medical record system or similar technology impacts nurses' work motivation, engagement, satisfaction or well-being.
Background:
Implementation of new technology, such as electronic medical record syste...
Objectives
To describe our experience with using a methodological outcomes measurement search filter (precise and sensitive versions of a filter designed to locate articles that report on psychometric properties of measurement tools) and citation searches to locate psychometric articles for tools that can be used to measure context attributes. To c...
Objectives
Caregivers play a key role in providing support to people with cancer. However, caregiving can be stressful and demanding, resulting in perceived caregiver burden. Social connectedness is considered partially independent from social support, yet few studies have examined whether social connectedness impacts caregiver burden. The current...
Aim:
To explore nurses' and family members' perspectives of family care at the end of life, during restricted visitation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background:
To minimise the transmission of COVID-19, stringent infection prevention and control measures resulted in restricted hospital access for non-essential workers and visitors, cr...
Aims:
To examine patients' perceptions of care quality following a same-day procedure in the cardiac catheterization laboratory and understand the extent to which they were prepared for discharge.
Design:
Single-centre, mixed-methods study.
Methods:
Postdischarge, online survey of patients who underwent a same-day procedure in the cardiac cath...
Background
Co-production is an umbrella term used to describe the process of generating knowledge by bringing together researchers and those who will use research to work in partnership. Multiple benefits of research co-production have been hypothesized, and in some cases documented, in the academic and practice record. However, there are significa...
Introduction
Inclusion of informal carers in transitional care is challenging because of fast throughput and service fragmentation. This study aimed to understand informal carers' needs during the care transitions of older adults from inpatient care to the community.
Methods
A qualitative exploratory design was used with mixed‐methods data collect...
Objectives
To share a concept analysis of social movement aimed at advancing its application to evidence uptake and sustainability in health-care.
Methods
We applied Avant and Walker's method to clarify the concept of social movement in the context of knowledge uptake and sustainability. Peer-reviewed and grey literature databases were systematica...
Background
Reports on the impact of electronic medical record (EMR) systems on clinicians are mixed. Currently, nurses’ experiences of adopting a large-scale, multisite EMR system have not been investigated. Nurses are the largest health care workforce; therefore, the impact of EMR implementation must be investigated and understood to ensure that p...
Background:
Nurses' harm prevention practices during the admission of older persons to hospital have important consequences for patient safety, preventable patient harm and length of hospital stay. Novel solutions are needed to assist nurses to balance complexity, high workload burden and patient safety during admission processes.
Aim:
Explore t...
Background:
Education guidelines and professional practice standards inform the design of postgraduate critical care nursing curricula to develop safety and quality competencies for high-quality care in complex environments. Alignment between nurses' motivations for undertaking postgraduate critical care education, and intended course learning out...
This study aimed to develop and evaluate a communication tool to guide transitional care for older patients. Using experience‐based co‐design, a communication tool resulted from the triangulation of data collected from three study phases. From 2015 to 2016, semi‐structured interviews and co‐design focus groups were undertaken with older patients, c...
Background
Preventable harms during hospitalization pose a major challenge for health systems globally. Nurse‐led strategies provide comprehensive harm prevention to keep the most vulnerable patients safe in hospital, but gaps in care are common. Nursing roles and activities to prevent harm to patients during acute hospitalization are poorly unders...
Background
Most hospitals use physiological signs to trigger an urgent clinical review. We investigated whether facilitation could improve nurses’ vital sign measurement, interpretation, treatment and escalation of care for deteriorating patients.
Methods
In a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial, we randomised 36 inpatient wards at four...
Background
The impacts of electronic medical record implementation on nurses, the largest healthcare workforce, have not been comprehensively examined. Negative impacts on nurses have implications for quality of patient care delivery and workforce retention.
Objective
To investigate changes in nurses’ well-being, intention to stay, burnout, work e...
Background
Research co-production is an umbrella term used to describe research users and researchers working together to generate knowledge. Research co-production is used to create knowledge that is relevant to current challenges and to increase uptake of that knowledge into practice, programs, products, and/or policy. Yet, rigorous theories and...
This study explored clinician perceptions of women's participation in decision‐making about antiemetic treatments during pregnancy, and suitability of the five Choosing Wisely questions to increase women's involvement. The qualitative interpretive descriptive design used semi‐structured interviews to capture data. Participants were six obstetrician...
Rationale, aims and objectives:
The field of implementation science is critical for embedding research evidence into healthcare practice, benefiting individuals, organizations, governments, and the broader community. Implementation science is messy and complex, underpinned by many theories and frameworks. Efficacious interventions for older people...
Background
The population worldwide is rapidly ageing, and demand for intensive care is increasing. People aged 85 years and above, known as the oldest old, are particularly vulnerable to critical illness owing to the physiological effects of ageing. Evidence surrounding admission of the oldest old to the intensive care is limited.
Objective
The o...
Drawing on our experience in a formal, long‐standing academic‐health service partnership and on the existing literature, this chapter focusses on how to manage academic‐health service partnerships during the research process, how to sustain such partnerships, and how to assess their sustainability. Academic‐health service partnerships are strategic...
Background
Prevalence of dementia is increasing, with more than half of aged care residents having a dementia diagnosis in Australia. Aged care staff currently lack dementia-specific knowledge and skills to care for residents with dementia.
Aim
To examine residential aged care staff perceptions of enablers and barriers to completing dementia-speci...
Background
A family-centred approach to care can aid family coping at the end of life in critical care. Yet little is known about how families’ preferences for involvement in care planning and decision-making, are assessed and supported.
Aim
To explore how family involvement and assessment of their needs at the end of life are facilitated and supp...
Background
Standard cannulation practice for hemodialysis consists of inserting needles “blindly” through skin into an arteriovenous fistula (AVF), which is more likely to cause damage. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) guided cannulation has potential for less damage; however, efficacy of this technique has not been explored. Our purpose was to tes...
Background
: Harm prevention research has seldom considered the complex demands on nurses negotiating multiple interrelated factors that contribute to preventable harms common in hospitalized patients. Best practice guidelines are available for individual risk factors, but few consider multiple factors that contribute to risk. As a consequence, dup...
Background
Caring for family members of dying patients is a vital component of end-of-life care, yet family members’ needs at the end of life may be unmet.
Aim
To explore hospital clinician assessment and facilitation of family needs and practices to support families at the end of life.
Design
Descriptive study utilising a retrospective medical r...
Disinvestment is the removal or reduction of previously provided practices or services, and has typically been undertaken where a practice or service has been clearly shown to be ineffective, inefficient and/or harmful. However, practices and services that have uncertain evidence of effectiveness, efficiency and safety can also be considered as can...
Background
Research co-production is an umbrella term used to describe research users and researchers working together to generate knowledge. Research co-production is used to create knowledge that is relevant to current challenges and to increase uptake of that knowledge into practice, programs, products, and/or policy. Yet, rigorous theories and...
Introducing new technology, such as an electronic medical record (EMR) into an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), can contribute to nurses’ stress and negative consequences for patient safety. The aim of this study was to explore ICU nurses’ perceptions of factors expected to influence their adoption of an EMR in their workplace. The objectives were to: 1)...
The use of electronic medical record (EMR) systems is transforming health care delivery in hospitals. Perioperative nurses work in a unique high-risk health setting, hence require specific considerations for EMR implementation. This research explored perioperative nurses’ perceptions of facilitators and barriers to the implementation of an EMR in t...
In Australia, almost 40% of nurses are aged 50 years and older. These nurses may be vulnerable to leaving the workforce due to challenges experienced during electronic medical record (EMR) implementations. This research explored older nurses’ perceptions of factors expected to influence their adoption of an EMR, to inform recommendations to support...
Objectives
To assess depression, anxiety and stress among undergraduate nursing and midwifery students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and identify socio-demographic and educational characteristics associated with higher depression, anxiety and stress scores.
Methods
Cross-sectional study during August–September 2020, using an anonymous, online, sel...
Aim
To explore the impact of COVID-19 on psychosocial well-being and learning for nursing and midwifery undergraduate students in an Australian university.
Background
The World Health Organization has reported a substantial psychological impact of COVID-19 on healthcare professionals to date. Evidence is lacking, however, regarding university nurs...
Smoking cessation reduces the risk of death, improves recovery, and reduces the risk of hospital readmission. Evidence and policy support hospital admission as an ideal time to deliver smoking‐cessation interventions. However, this is not well implemented in practice. In this systematic review, the authors summarize the literature on smoking‐cessat...
Frailty is a condition characterised by increased vulnerability and decline of physical and cognitive reserves, most often affecting older people. This can lead to a cascade of repeated hospitalisations, further decline and ultimately loss of independence. Frailty and pre‐frailty are modifiable; interventions such as physical exercise, cognitive tr...
Background
Electronic medical record system implementations impact nurses, their work and workflows. The aim of this study was to understand nurses’ perceptions of barriers and enablers to using a new electronic medical record in an acute hospital environment. Methods: Data were collected just prior to an organisation-wide new electronic medical re...