Transcript of Older People’s Mental Health (OPMH) – Physical health practice improvement project highlights - YouTube
[Music]
[Showcase title slide: Older People's Mental Health – Physical Health Practice Improvement Project: Showcasing innovation and practice]
Rod McKay: I would like to acknowledge that this is a showcase that has been brought together because so many people have been keen to engage in the work that you have done. The project was designed to let local services decide what was their focus area based on their needs and based on the needs of their consumers.
[Project title slide: Background and reflections | Dr Kate Jackson, Director OPMHPU, NSW Ministry of Health]
[Slide: Where we are now?]
Dr Kate Jackson: Where are we at now from a state-wide perspective with this project? Well, some of the projects have been redesigned or couldn't be progressed. A number of Local Health districts joined the Me in Mind Health Prompt Project as part of a multi-site trial due to COVID impacts on their capacity to undertake an individual LHD project and I think that's actually been a terrific thing. However, for all those changes we have retained 10 of the original 15 participating Local Health Districts and we have progressed to various points – eight projects, which you'll hear about today.
[Project title slide: Lived experience involvement | Geoff Davidson & Jessica Peters, 'B' NEAMI]
Geoff Davidson: Doing nothing is not an option on my watch with my clients but also that my basic thing is to help them take back control of their lives.
[Project title slide: CSU Reflections | Prof Russell Roberts]
Prof Russell Roberts: Your work is an important cog in that collective impact wheel – a really important cog. But I think most importantly – and this is what we're here for – you're changing people's lives. You're influencing communities, families and transforming them and that is what we're here for.
[Project title slide: Adapting fit for your life: Redefining mental health intervention in regional NSW | Gabe McNamara, Western NSW LHD & Rachel Rossiter, Charles Sturt University]
Rachel Rossiter: An overview of what we're providing to you today is implementing a community-based program in Older People's Mental Health Service and it was based in Orange in New South Wales. It'll show you why we did what we did, who we partnered with, what our outcomes were and what were the challenges and key successes of this program.
[Slide: The physical health program]
The program was a 9-week group-based program. We looked at those being three 60-minute sessions weekly, on a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday. It was self-determined exercise intensity but the beauty of that too was the connection with that AEP (that exercise physiologist) who was able to bring to it the motivation and engage consumers throughout the process, and the connection with a clinician, and make it accessible to them.
[Project title slide: LIVE WELL: empowering positive lifestyle change in consumers | Dr Carmelo Aquilina & Lachlan Best, South Western Sydney LHD
Slide: What makes us healthy]
Dr Carmelo Aquilina: 50% of health is due to lifestyle and behaviour. It only gets 4% of Health spend and the opportunity to invest more in lifestyle – to get more health – is an opportunity to get the best return on healthcare investment and we hope to improve health, well-being and resilience.
[Slide: Why LIVE WELL]
Lachlan Best: So, if someone indicates that, say, they're fine with their physical health but their social activity isn't great and they would like to improve that more, then you can have a more in-depth conversation around that.
[Project title slide: Screening of morbidity in the older mental health consumer | Brian Tomney, Northern Sydney LHD]
Brian Tomney: Another project was looked at trying to increase the level of metabolic screening done by four Community Mental Health Services.
[Slide: Our Project]
The group decided to set the objective of trying to get at least 75% of our consumers to have complete metabolic screening.
[Slide: What now]
We have been able to sustain our metabolic monitoring rates above 75% and actually we've been able to improve since then. Although the project's finished we've formed a Physical Health Peer Review Group just to keep a focus on physical health issues – make sure we sustain the improvements. We have been able to employ consumer peer workers and we do have consumer engagement in the LHD-wide physical health project.
[Project title slide: Piloting the Flourish physical health prompt with older people with a mental illness | Anne Vevers & Annette Gallard, Nepean Blue Mountains LHD | Marcelle Droulers, Charles Sturt University | John Stevens, OPMHIPU, NSW Ministry of Health]
John Stevens: It's a partnership between Flourish Australia, Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, the Ministry of Health and Marcelle here, from Charles State University. So, we've got four separate partners working together to look at improving the screening.
[Slide: CSU reflections]
Marcelle Droulers: I like the contrast with these cards is they're about opening up a conversation rather than a screening tool. And we had this issue putting in the ethics approval, trying to communicate, no, we're not doing some quantitative evaluation here of implementing. We want to hear from these individuals how it feels to be involved. And Rod's comment earlier that question about who cares really resonated with me when I was thinking about this because it's letting the client know that someone cares about their physical health. It's definitely action oriented. So, individuals start the conversation with the clinician, but they're very much prompted to continue the conversation with the GP or take some other actions.
[Project title slide: Exercise: a key determinant of holistic health improvement program pilot testing initiative | Dr Suman Tyagi, Bhrat Nepal | Melinda Adamcewicz, Western Sydney LHD
Slide: Exercise as a key determinant of holistic health for older people living with mental illnesses: A Pilot Study]
Dr Suman Tyagi: We are here from Western Sydney LHD to present a pilot study undertaken to see the effectiveness of exercise in achieving holistic health outcomes for older people with mental illness and living in Western Sydney LHD.
[Slide: Exercise as a key determinant of holistic health for older people living with mental illnesses: A Pilot Study: Overview]
Older mental health consumers receiving usual mental health care interventions combined with the clinically supported exercise program would have improved physical and psychological health outcomes compared to just usual mental health care.
Melinda Adamcewicz: This amazing connection grew between the participants. So, like by the second week, you know, we have an older gentleman bringing in a bag of fruit from his tree to share with the other participants and then, you know, the next week we've got an elderly lady who crochets bed socks. She's bringing in a bag of bed socks to share because we're coming into winter. So, that sense of community grew so quickly.
[Project title slide: Manage My Health: a coaching approach to assist older mental health consumers to better manage their own physical health needs | James Bradbury, Illawarra Shoalhaven LHD | Jessica Peters, Peer Worker]
[Slide: The ISLHD OPMHS Manage My Health Journey]
James Bradbury: Looking at our list of planning activities we found there was consistency with action research methodology, which starts with understanding the consumer perspective. So, we began with a small project to better understand that.
[Project title slide: OPtiMHise: Optimising the health and lifestyle factors of consumers accessing the Older People's Mental Health Service | Dr Kate Mullin & Natalie Narunsky, South Eastern Sydney LHD
Slide: OPtiMHize Project
Dr Kate Mullin: We wanted to identify health and lifestyle issues impacting people over the age of 65 living with mental illness. Then we wanted to develop a health screening questionnaire to engage with consumers to complete that questionnaire and then to get feedback from them in real time about that questionnaire to allow us to change it and make it better going forward. Then we wanted to provide consumers, carers with pathways to address any health issues that they identify in the questionnaire.
[Project title slide: NEAMI older persons physical health prompt | Vicki Langan & Simon Acaster, NEAMI National | John Stevens, OPMHPU, NSW Ministry of Health
Slide: Background]
John Stevens: The project came about because one of the regional managers near my National raised that they're actually looking at doing an older person's version of this health prompt.
Vicki Langan: I'm here as a person with a lived experience, as a person that lives with chronic disease and a person that lives with chronic pain. So, I'm here for that because I want to live to the greatest old age that my granny in Ireland is.
Simon Acaster: I have found the older person's health prompt to be quite a valuable tool in practice. When I have completed it, I've usually completed it with the consumer in our first or second session together and I've always suggested that it's in a place of their choice so that they feel comfortable to answer the questions and that we can have a nice, you know, trauma-informed conversation about their physical health.
[Title slide: Summation and evaluation | Adjunct A/Prof Rod McKay, Clinical Advisor OPMHPU, NSW Ministry of Health]
Adjunct A/Prof Rod McKay: The key message I've heard is that there's a passion. There's a passion not just for those in the room and that people are acting on it. And I would encourage people to continue acting on that passion. So, thank you all. If we work with each other and we work with consumers we can generate new ideas and we can examine what we do and do it better. I think it's really helped people to step back and see we can do things differently and also to share that older persons' needs are similar but quite different to those of the rest of the population and we need to meet those needs.
[End]