Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 15, 2025

Implementation of a Real-Time Psychosis Risk Detection and Alerting System Based on Electronic Health Records using CogStack
Published on: May 15, 2020
Improving Detection of Client Complexity in the Community (Impact): A Study Protocol of a Pragmatic Randomized
Jennifer Boak1, Irene Blackberry2, Tshepo Rasekaba2
1Community Nursing Services, Bendigo Health, Kennington, VIC 3550, Australia.
Background:
Community-dwelling older clients are becoming increasingly complex. Detecting this complexity in clinical practice is limited, with greater reliance on community nurses' clinical judgment and skills. The lack of a consistent approach to complexity impacts the level of care and support for older clients to remain in their homes for longer.
Objective:
To examine the effectiveness of the Patient Complexity Instrument (PCI) in addition to nurses' clinical judgment to enhance detection of complexity, and subsequent older clients' resource allocation compared to usual nursing assessment.
Design:
A pragmatic randomized controlled trial will be conducted within a community nursing service in regional Victoria, Australia. Clients 65 years and over referred to the service who are eligible for Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) funding will be randomized into Control group: usual nursing assessment or Intervention group: usual nursing assessment plus the PCI. Nurse participants are Registered Nurses currently employed in the community nursing service.
Results:
This study will explore whether introducing the PCI in a community nursing service enhances detection of complexity and client care resource allocation compared to nurses' clinical judgment based on usual nursing assessment.
Conclusion:
This protocol outlines the study to enhance the detection of complexity by nurses delivering care for community-dwelling older people in the regional Australian context. The findings will inform the use of a standardized tool to detect complexity among community-dwelling older Australians.
Related Concept Videos
Community Based Intervention
Foundations of Community Mental Health Programs
Central to the success of community-based interventions is the...
Study Designs in Epidemiology
Observational studies are those where the researcher does not intervene but rather observes natural variations. They include cross-sectional, cohort, and...
Strategies for Assessing and Addressing Confounding
Confounding can be addressed at both the design phase of a study and through analytical methods after data...
Randomized Experiments
Simple randomization
Simple...
Blinding
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...

