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Seoul National University hosts interRAI NZ thought leader
The rapid rise in the number of older people in addition to relatively small family sizes is concerning our Korean health colleagues.
interRAI Services Principal Advisor Dr Brigette Meehan was in Korea in October on a short visit to a symposium on big data, funded and hosted by Seoul National University, Graduate School of Public Health. The University hosted other presenters from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan and Korea.
“There is a lot of interest in effective and efficient ways of providing support for older people to remain in their own homes, in terms of resources and models of care and those are specific challenges for rapidly ageing Asian communities,” Brigette said.
“Top of mind for them I would say are finding innovative ways to harness research findings, in order to influence health and social policy and practices.”
“Everyone is aware that decisions must be based on evidence, and if you don’t know what the support needs of the population are, how can you plan? Korea and the other counties involved in the conference had high regard for interRAI assessment data to help understand current and future needs of people.
“The conference audience was mostly Korean post graduate students. The aim was to inform their thinking for future research or their future workplace roles. A small workshop following the conference, shared research underway and brainstormed future efforts.
“We all share the same problems to a greater or lesser extent,” Brigette said. “Everyone was keen to collaborate not only to share ideas, but to understand differences as those differences could spark ideas or solutions for different countries.
“And New Zealand’s growing data base of information from interRAI assessments is a taonga.”
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