Multi-stakeholder aged care research networks: a scoping review - Poster

Background: Australia is undergoing major aged care reform to improve the quality and safety of aged care. A key enabler of quality improvement is strengthening evidence-based practice through creating a research translation ecosystem. Collaborative multi-stakeholder research networks offer a potential solution by bringing together all stakeholders to identify evidence to practice gaps, codesign research and translate knowledge into practice. This scoping review aimed to identify the key factors required to create sustainable and impactful multi-stakeholder aged care research networks.

Methods: A literature search was completed in MEDLINE, EBSCO CINAHL+, Scopus, Emcare and Ageline to identify existing multi-stakeholder aged care research networks. A grey literature search was conducted using Google, Google Scholar, AAG, APO and a manual search of targeted websites.

Results: The scoping review identified 29 papers/web-based resources for inclusion, reporting on six multi-stakeholder research networks from the UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and the US. Networks were hard to find due to a lack of consistent terminology and significant overlap with other concepts such as teaching nursing homes. Enabling factors of successful networks included flexibility in structure, good governance, leveraging pre-existing research relationships, consistent and open communication, capacity building for all stakeholders, time and resources for dissemination and focus on building long term partnerships independent of research projects.

Conclusions/Implications: Collaborative multi-stakeholder research networks offer promise for improving research translation in aged care. For the field to advance, it requires internationally agreed terminology for network models, clear reporting and evaluation guidelines and dedicated infrastructure funding for research networks.