University of Tasmania, Australia

This project aimed to identify the issues and opportunities which present themselves in the context of information exchange during the transfer of people with dementia from an acute hospital to residential aged care. The project methodology included the following stages:

• investigate and identify information that staff consider is most useful to be available at the time of transfer to a residential aged care facility;
• develop a method of collecting the information for transfer to the residential aged care facility;
• implement a method of transferring the information; and 
• evaluate the effect of the use of the information on the transition process within the first month of residence in the aged care facility

However, having undertaken the initial stages of the research it became evident that the initial problems identified with the transfer of information from the hospital to the residential aged care facilities had been improved outside the research project and that further intervention was unnecessary at that time.