Desley Harvey

• Rockhampton Hospital

Introduction People diagnosed with neurodegenerative disorders often grapple with threats to their agency, prompting some to engage in advance care planning. Advance care plans are intended to protect autonomy by helping patients receive goal-consistent healthcare. Accordingly, there is a need to better understand factors associated with hospital d...

There is limited qualitative research specifically exploring the experiences of young people living with cancer in nonmetropolitan Australia. This article reports on an in-depth qualitative study exploring young people’s experiences of diagnosis, treatment, and postcancer care and support, focusing on the impact of living in regional and remote Que...

Aim People diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disorder often contend with a threat to independence and control, leading some to complete an advance care plan. Advance care plans are commonly associated with treatment limitations; however, key patient agents (such as doctors, allied health, nurses and family) may instead make temporal, best interest...

Informal carers provide the majority of care to older Australians and play an essential role in assisting older people with complex care needs to remain living in their own homes. As such, carers are increasingly faced with systemic responsibilities, including coordinating services across multifaceted health and aged care systems and negotiating tr...

There is worldwide recognition of the need to redesign health service delivery with a focus on strengthening primary health care and aligning health and social care through integrated models. A defining feature of integrated models is improved patient and carer experience of care. This study explored the experiences of older people and their carers...

Introduction: Writing a manuscript for publication is a challenge for those health practitioners whose primary role is to provide clinical services. The aim of this study was to increase the capacity of allied health practitioners who are employed in a clinical setting to submit manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals.Methods: An acti...

Optimal care of community-dwelling older Australians with complex needs is a national imperative. Suboptimal care that is reactive, episodic and fragmented, is costly to the health system, can be life threatening to the older person and produces unsustainable carer demands. Health outcomes would be improved if services (health and social) are align...

Context: Advances in medicine have seen changes in mortality in Western countries. Simultaneously, countries such as Australia, Canada, USA, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Germany have encouraged consumer-directed care and Advance Care Plan (ACP) completion, giving patients a voice despite incapacity. Adhering to ACPs relies on the decision-m...

This review explores the literature on experiences of young people (15-39) living with cancer from non-metropolitan areas, given most available research has focused on those living in major metropolitan areas. The purpose of the review is to inform a) clinical practice and b) future research on young people living with cancer in non-metropolitan ar...

Background Translating research into clinical practice is challenging for health services. Emerging approaches in implementation science recognise the need for a theory–driven approach to identify and overcome barriers to guideline adherence. However, many clinicians do not have the capacity, confidence, or expertise to realise change in their loca...

Background Community-dwelling older persons with complex care needs may deteriorate rapidly and require hospitalisation if they receive inadequate support for their conditions in the community. Intervention A comprehensive, multidimensional geriatric assessment with care coordination was performed in a community setting—Older Persons ENablement An...

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to examine the care transitions of older people who transfer between home, acute and sub-acute care to determine if there were common transition types and areas for improvements. Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal case study design was used to examine care transitions of 19 older people and their carers...

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to describe the implementation of an expanded-scope physiotherapy service in a regional hospital emergency department (ED) in Australia and discuss the lessons learnt in terms of long-term sustainability of these roles in regional areas. Methods: The existing ED advanced physiotherapist was trained...

Purpose Quality care transitions of older people across acute, sub-acute and primary care are critical to safety and cost, which is the reason interventions to improve practice are a priority. Yet, given the complexity of providers and services involved it is often difficult to know the types of tensions that arise in day-to-day transition work or...

Objective The aim of the present study was to describe the care transition experiences of older people who transfer between subacute and primary care, and to identify factors that influence these experiences. A further aim of the study was to identify ways to enhance the Geriatric Evaluation and Management (GEM) model of care and improve local coor...

Objective Combining research with clinical practice has benefits for health services and practitioners. There is limited information available on strategies used by health professionals to balance research with high clinical service demands. The aims of the present study were to examine how research is initiated and to identify the factors that inf...

Objective We compared the research experience or support needs of allied health professionals in rural versus regional cities to identify if they were the same or different.DesignDescriptive study using a cross sectional survey.SettingThis study was carried within Queensland Health's northern six health services.ParticipantsQueensland health staff...

Although current health care service delivery approaches for children with cerebral palsy recognize the importance of including parents in the health care of their child, we do not yet understand how parents experience this phenomenon. In this study, we used grounded theory methodology to explore parents’ experiences of health care for their childr...

Patient and carer experiences of health care are important for service improvements. However, the literature available often evaluates experiences from a health professional perspective rather than exploring the perspective of patients or families. Health care of children with cerebral palsy directly involves and impacts families. Accordingly, rese...

The mental health and well-being of rural women and how to promote it is not well understood. This paper reviews contrasting discourses in relation to rural women, highlighting the way in which gender roles may be reinforced and women’s health and well-being compromised. The structural analysis, practice frameworks and skills provided by the discip...

Children with cerebral palsy have complex healthcare needs and often require complex multidisciplinary care. It is important for clinicians to understand which approaches to healthcare service delivery for this population are supported in the literature and how these should be applied in clinical practice. This narrative review aims to identify and...

Rural and remote environments are challenging places in which to achieve health and well-being. In this woman-centered, grounded theory study, I explored the meaning of health and well-being as well as how it is achieved from the perspective of women living in remote inland parts of Australia. The study was based on semistructured interviews with 2...

Evidence-based practice and research are beginning and endpoints on a research continuum. Progression along the continuum builds research capacity. Occupational Therapy has a low evidence base, thus, clinicians are not implementing evidence-based practice or publishing research. Barriers to implementing evidence-based practice and engaging in resea...

Understanding the influence of rural social determinants on health can contribute to alleviating disparities between the health of urban and rural populations. Qualitative methodologies have made a substantial contribution to our understanding of rural health issues. However, there are few published case studies of the process of designing qualitat...

Empowerment and community participation are major strategies, worldwide, for alleviating poverty and social exclusion, thereby reducing health disparities. In Australia, a lack of control, or mastery, has long been widely acknowledged as one aspect of a broader experience of powerlessness that needs to be addressed to reduce the current preventable...

Although Australian rural women appear to be coping well despite a lack of services, harsh environmental conditions and overall rural health disadvantage, there is little research into the factors which promote good health among them. The aim of this article is to document and analyse current understandings about how rural Australian women maintain...

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (Queensland Section), Australia, provides health services for remote populations across an area of approximately 600,000 km2. The challenge presented to the service was to provide effective health promotion as well as acute clinical services. This article describes the development of field days, an initiative based o...

To evaluate the pilot phase of a tobacco brief intervention program in three Indigenous health care settings in rural and remote north Queensland. A combination of in-depth interviews with health staff and managers and focus groups with health staff and consumers. The tobacco brief intervention initiative resulted in changes in clinical practice am...

This paper reviews literature on self-harm and suicide among Indigenous populations in four nations with histories of British colonization, with a more detailed exploration of patterns and primary care considerations in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Issues of definition, under-reporting, lack of reporting, varying co...