Whiddon appoints Dr Jennie Hewitt to positive ageing team

Aged care provider Whiddon has appointed award-winning physiotherapist and clinical researcher Dr Jennifer Hewitt to its Research and Positive Ageing Team.

Hewitt, who has a passion for delivering best-practice health and wellbeing programs, is the recent recipient of a Global Ageing Trailblazer Award at the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards. Out of more than 200 submissions from 17 countries, Hewitt was recognised as one of the leading trailblazers in ageing in the Asia–Pacific region for “multidisciplinary leadership in ageing that inspires change in their home country”.

Whiddon CEO Chris Mamarelis said, “Jennie has already worked closely with us on our new Exercise 4 Life Program, which is seeing incredible outcomes for our residents and clients in the areas of pain management and re-ablement. We look forward to seeing the continuing difference Jennie will make as part of our team.”

Hewitt will be part of the team led by Karn Nelson.

In addition to her Trailblazer award, Hewitt has achieved the ACSA National Lifetime Achievement Award as well as a National Commendation for Better Practice from the Aged Care Quality Agency for her work on an exercise program for residents of aged care that resulted in a 55% reduction in falls. This work was published internationally and attained recognition for the paper “most likely to influence policy and practice”, from the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

Hewitt also appeared as an expert witness at the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, advocating for residents to have improved access to rehabilitation and re-ablement programs. The Federal Department of Health appointed her as Technical Advisor on the implementation of her falls prevention program (called the Sunbeam Program) in more than 100 aged care facilities nationally.

Image credit: iStock.com/Andrii Yalanskyi