Congratulations to International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) Scholarship winner Dr Tesfahun Eshetie from the Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA) Research Centre, co-located at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the Flinders University Caring Futures Institute.
Dr Eshetie is a geriatric pharmacoepidemiologist and Research Fellow whose work uses national linked data to monitor the quality and safety of aged care and improve health outcomes for older Australians.
Improving care quality for older Australians
Dr Eshetie leads the ROSA Outcomes Monitoring System (OMS), a national program that draws on routinely collected national and state-based data to drive improvements in aged care quality and safety across Australia. His research focuses on three areas: monitoring unwarranted variation in care, developing clinical prediction models to identify older people at risk of harm, and evaluating the real-world use of medicines in older populations where evidence from clinical trials is limited.
Much of this work centres on populations living with dementia, multimorbidity, frailty, or polypharmacy, where timely access to linked data is essential for generating policy-relevant evidence and targeting interventions at critical points along the care journey.
For Dr Eshetie, the most important lesson from working with linked data is that its value is not realised through analysis alone. Linked data becomes truly powerful when it is embedded within a collaborative, stakeholder-driven system designed for translation into practice and policy, with findings that are co-designed, relevant, and trusted by end users.
Delivering Australia-first reporting for aged care providers
A career highlight for Dr Eshetie has been leading the ROSA OMS Home Care and Residential Aged Care Annual Reports, which deliver individualised quality and safety reports to eligible South Australian aged care providers. The ROSA OMS Home Care Report is an Australian first, providing comprehensive quality and safety monitoring for home care services in South Australia.
Dr Eshetie is also an awardee of the inaugural Health Translation SA MRFF Catalyst Grant Scheme, a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Deprescribing Network, and the 2022 recipient of the Robert Penhall Early Career Research Award from the Australian Association of Gerontology SA Division. At IPDLN, Dr Eshetie is looking forward to presenting the ROSA OMS body of work, connecting with international experts in population data science, and exploring collaborations that advance evidence generation for older populations globally.