From Knowledge to Action via Team-based Knowledge Rounds - Using Evidence-based Knowledge in Preventive and Health-promoting Work with Older Adults in Elderly Care

Today´s welfare society is facing several challenges, including the fact that the demographic trend means that fewer workers must provide for more and more people, as well as the fact that the older adults are living longer and the group of older adults in need of care is getting larger. Maintaining and developing welfare under these conditions requires new solutions.

Integrated care that better meets the needs of the population needs to make a move towards working more person-centered, cohesive, preventive and health-promoting, as well as it needs to be based on scientific evidence.

Our previous project identified incentives, hindrances, and needs in the process of implementing evidence-based knowledge in elderly care and this existing gap between scientific evidence and what is being implemented in practical work must be filled.

The overall goal of the project is therefore to strengthen the capacity for research use among staff in municipal care and the care of older adults.Within the context of a long-term collaboration between the academy and the care administration in one of Sweden´s larger municipalities, we will conduct a series of team-based knowledge rounds.

The purpose of the knowledge rounds is to strengthen structures in the daily work of the personnel to enable integration of research-based knowledge and implement scientific evidence in municipal elderly care.

The project intends to test the method with knowledge rounds in a team within home care and a team within a nursing home.

The teams will consist of an occupational therapist, physiotherapist, nurse, a contact person (assistive nurse), head of unit, social worker, patient and/or relative representative and a researcher. Case descriptions will be discussed, and knowledge gaps in the team will be identified.

Based on this, interventions in the form of short web-based lectures by researchers compiling evidence in a relevant area, and/or in the form of support to search and assess the quality and relevance of literature reviews in an important area will be offered to the team.

The project will be evaluated through a process analysis with the aim of highlighting lessons learned and planning how team-based knowledge rounds can be implemented on a larger scale. The method of team-based knowledge rounds has the potential to be relevant for all personnel in municipal elderly care.