About
Biography - Dr Alison Craswell, PhD, RN, is the inaugural regional university Cisco Research Chair in Digital Health and Ageing, part of the National Industry Innovation Network (NIIN). This role is the culmination of research with older adults and health informatics aiming to extend knowledge and industry engagement in research.
As Associate Professorial Research Fellow in a collaborative appointment with Caboolture Hospital, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, Alison builds capacity in clinician researchers through investigating real-world problems.
Research - Alison's research focus is the acute care of older adults and digital innovation. Projects range from partnering with carers to detect and manage delirium (NHMRC) developing and evaluating in hospital models of care, functional decline after emergency surgery (MNH collaborative grant), to primary care provision by Nurse Practitioners in rural and remote aged care (Office of Research and Innovation QHealth). Digital health solutions for older adults and nurses follow from Alison's PhD study examining how midwives transitioned to digital data entry for perinatal data collection and evaluation of Pyxis and ieMR implementations.
International collaboration with University of Saskatchewan has led to several successful grants and publications with consumer centred/patient-oriented research in the acute care of older adults. Alison is presently undertaking an evaluation of a hybrid Nav-Care model with Better LTC in University of Alberta and University of Saskatchewan, and Golden Healthcare.
Alison's research has impact. Alison project managed the CEDRiC (Care coordination through Emergency Department, Residential Aged Care and Primary Health Collaboration) project to completion, an innovative model of service delivery to strengthen the capacity of the aged care sector to deliver high quality aged care in both primary and secondary settings. The Geriatric Emergency Department Intervention (GEDI) model has been recognised with a Queensland Premier's Award for Excellent and has been rolled out across Queensland hospitals as part of the Frail Older Peoples Initiative. Evaluation of the implementation and dissemination of the GEDI in several emergency Departments in Queensland has shown the intervention is transferable across sites and continues to show impressive reduction in admissions and lengths of stay. Alison continues this work through implementation of Nurse Practitioners into Aged Care.
Honours and HDR projects - Alison supervises Higher Degree by Research Students and will accept students with projects in the area of digital solutions for older adults including telemedicine, falls prevention deep learning/augmented intelligence algorithms and automation of low value nursing care.
Media Commentary
Dr Alison Craswell's specialist areas of knowledge include:
- acute care of older adults
- digital health and informatics
- health service evaluation.