This project will commence in August 2025 and use an online interactive training course to promote wider and more rapid adoption of the existing person-centred Volunteer Dementia and Delirium Care Program (VDDCP), to support higher quality care for people living with dementia and/or delirium in hospital settings across Australia.

In Australia, people living with dementia account for around 200,000 hospitalisations each year, and delirium is one of the most common hospital-acquired complications. Improving person-centred care for this extensive group has the potential for far reaching impact on quality and costs of hospital care. However, task-oriented and medically focused hospital environments are not conducive to supporting person-centred care, with significant time constraints and staffing limitations contributing to poor care outcomes, including death.

Volunteers have provided a way of addressing this crisis, by supporting care which identifies and meets the physical, social and emotional needs of each patient; however, the reach of volunteer training to-date has been constrained by face-to-face delivery. This proposal to develop and trial an innovative online interactive VDDCP training course is in direct response to urgent calls from our long-term consumer, volunteer, hospital and government partners for improving person-centred acute hospital care for people living with dementia and/or delirium. Being involved in the journey and witnessing the effectiveness of the face-to-face training, these partners are committed to an online version that ensures broader VDDCP uptake, whilst continuing to facilitate positive outcomes for volunteers, patients and their carers.

Figure 1: Volunteer Dementia and Delirium Care Program (VDDCP)

Image

Figure 2: Timeline of development of VDDCP

Image