Frailty Nexus: Community of practice for frailty researchers and healthcare professionals

Background: There has been success in implementing frailty education for healthcare professionals, but there remains a need to improve the knowledge and skills of researchers and healthcare professionals to develop, implement and evaluate frailty-focused research. This paper describes how the Australian Frailty Network developed and evaluated a virtual community of practice (VCOP), a proven model for fostering knowledge mobilisation, to support researchers and healthcare professionals in advancing frailty research and practice in Australia.

Methods: A survey of prospective members sought to define the VCOP’s purpose, membership and structure. An evaluation was undertaken 18 months post-commencement, guided by the RE-AIM framework to assess reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance.

Results: Fifty-five prospective members completed the initial survey. There was wide agreement from respondents to be inclusive in defining membership. The preferred purposes of the group included networking, opportunities to gain feedback, review frailty research, and knowledge and skill acquisition. In response, Frailty Nexus was launched, with three core components (‘Learning Link-Up’, online learning events; ‘Nexus News’, newsletter sharing learning and research opportunities; ‘Nexus Nook’, a library of shared resources). Membership totalled 618 from 81 organisations. Ninety-six percent of surveyed members expressed satisfaction with Frailty Nexus.

Conclusions: Frailty Nexus is contributing to capacity building in multidisciplinary and translational frailty research. This VCOP could serve as a model that can be adapted by others to improve research outcomes and policy implementation.