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Partner with us

We are open to opportunities to work with aged care services, charities or consumer groups. We have round table events each year to discuss research and translation to practice and policy.

We also provide consultation on research and evaluation related to aged care services

From time-to-time we will be seeking partners to respond to funding opportunities related to aged care research priorities.

To discuss your needs, ideas or for more information about upcoming opportunities please reach out to our Director, Professor Davina Porock.

Examples of partnering opportunities

Ramsay Health Care the largest private hospital operator in Australia with 72 hospitals and day surgery units. In addition to its comprehensive range of private hospitals, Ramsay Health Care also operates four public facilities in Australia, the Joondalup Health Campus, Mildura Base Hospital, Noosa Hospital and Peel Health Campus.

In 2017 it launched the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation to undertake and fund research activities to improve patient outcomes across Ramsay Health Care facilities. ECU's School of Nursing and Midwifery has established a strong research collaboration with Ramsay Health Care and undertaken research projects in partnership with Ramsay staff.

Since 2017, the collaboration has facilitated the ongoing funded contract for a Research Fellow appointment at Hollywood Private Hospital and this has been recognised by the hospital as increasing its research capacity. As the focus on the research is rehabilitation and older adult care, including end-of-life care, this creates further opportunities with Hollywood Private Hospital but also for expansion across other Ramsay sites.

The recent awarding of $734,000 by the Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation to Dr Rosemary Saunders with a team of researchers from five universities across Australia to investigate the effectiveness of using nurse led volunteer support interventions and a technology-driven pain assessment* creates additional future research opportunities and graduate research opportunities.

*PainChek® compared with standard care, on changes in frailty and specific clinical outcomes of older adults during hospitalisation, at discharge and at 30 days after discharge.

interRAI network

As part of this project, the InterRAI system for assessment of older and vulnerable individuals will be used and this creates an additional partner for our centre.

interRAI is a collaborative network of researchers and practitioners in over 35 countries committed to improving care for persons who are disabled or medically complex. Our research team is part of this network and is working directly with the interRAI Australia Coordinating Centre at University of Queensland, basing ourselves at the Hollywood Private Hospital for the frailty project.

The frailty project also brings another partner to the centre, PainChek®, the world's first app that uses AI and smartphone technology to assess pain in people with cognitive decline. The frailty project will be the first study to utilise, PainChek® in a hospital setting and as members of the Centre team are existing research partners this creates other opportunities for research.

Two members of the Centre are also undertaking an evaluation of the PainChek® application in residential aged care.

With the existing research collaborations and plans for PainChek® to be provided free for 12-months to a number of residential aged care facilities, our Centre is in a unique position to grow our collaboration research.

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