Identifying older adults at risk of poor outcomes to promote advance care planning among aged care residents

The proposed research intends to fill the identified gaps by enhancing prognostic certainty for clinicians, and improving informed decision-making for patients in residential aged care facilities (RACFs), or their surrogate decision-makers (SDMs) to achieve patient goals of care.

CriSTAL was previously validated in Hospital patients, and given the clinical profile and health service requirements of RACF residents, we believe the tool will need to be customised. The validation of the CriSTAL tool in this setting will attempt to identify the best predictors of death and hospital transfers and reduce the number of prognostic variables to achieve an optimal threshold that balances a comprehensive list with rapid administration routine use in residential aged care facilities.

1. To determine the ability of the RACF-modified CriSTAL tool to predict death and hospital transfers in the short-term [short-term defined as occurring within 6 months of assessment in the RACF]
2. To describe the hospital transfer practices and their determinants

Manuscript in production