With Presentations from Dr Jennie Hewitt and Rik Dawson.

Presented by the ANZFPS Early-Mid Career Researcher Sub-Committee

Presenters: Dr Jennie Hewitt and Rik Dawson

Dr Jennie Hewitt will discuss the implementation of Sunbeam (successful fall prevention intervention) into RACF. Rik Dawson will discuss his experience delivering fall prevention exercise using telehealth focusing on the user experience. Jennie and Rik will also discuss how AN-ACC has influenced fall prevention activities and provided opportunities for practice change in RACF.

Dr Jennie Hewitt is a physiotherapist, educator, and academic researcher with a passion for delivering best practice. She has been awarded an Australian National Lifetime Achievement Award, and a National Commendation for Better Practice for her work on the Sunbeam Aged Care Exercise Program. She attained the Morley Award, for the paper most likely to influence policy and practice, from the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. Her work has been used to advocate for Australian Aged Care Funding Reform, she appeared as an expert witness at the Royal Commission and has worked as Technical Advisor to the Federal Chief Allied Health Officer on the implementation and scaling of the Sunbeam Program in 119 aged care facilities across Australia. In 2022 she won the innovAGEING award with Whiddon for a project that used exercise to address chronic pain and deconditioning and in 2023 she was named as an Ageing Asia Global Trailblazer.

Rik Dawson graduated from Sydney University in 1993. Rik is a titled Gerontological Physiotherapist, Vice President of the Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) and the APA representative on the Aged Care Quality Standard Clinical Working Group. Rik was the owner of Age well Physiotherapy, a practice that employed physiotherapists and occupational therapists in Aged Care across Australia. Rik sold his practice in 2020 and is now enrolled at Sydney University as PhD candidate where he is focusing on telehealth for older people. Rik is a graduate of the AICD and has been a Director of the APA since 2017. Rik was a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and the Director member on the Physiotherapy Research Foundation where he worked to connect research to policy and practice. Rik currently chairs the Nominations, Remuneration, and Governance Board sub-committee. He has a passion for communication, advocacy, leadership and good governance. Rik believes that linking strategy to member value is key to non-profit organisation’s success.