Improvement Programme Manager
Sarah De Biase is the Improvement Programme Manager for the Yorkshire and Humber AHSN Improvement Academy Healthy Ageing Collaborative. The Healthy Ageing Collaborative was established to support the development of new, evidence-based models of care for older people with frailty. Sarah is working closely with primary care to optimise clinical utility of the electronic Frailty Index (eFI) tool to proactively identify and diagnose frailty, and allow for better targeting of evidence-based interventions, improved planning of health services utilisation and development of more appropriate, proactive, goal-orientated care pathways for older people with frailty. Interventions being tested include individualised medication reviews for people living with frailty using the SystmOne STOPP protocol, developed using the original Gallagher et al (2008) STOPP/START criteria.
Sarah is passionate about quality improvement, particularly improving care for older people, and improvement strategies/techniques which support clinicians to translate research into practice and demonstrate improvement.
Prior to joining the Y&H AHSN Improvement Academy, Sarah worked as a clinical lead physiotherapist in London. She has extensive clinical experience as a physiotherapist specialising in the rehabilitation of older people for 12 years. Sarah has an MSc in Gerontology from King’s College London. Sarah is currently a regional representative and journal editor for one of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy’s professional network – AGILE. She has showcased a number of her improvement projects at national events, including King’s Fund events, HSRN Symposium and Physiotherapy UK.