Olga Birchall
Olga Birchall is a senior speech pathologist with a passion for informed decision making and equity in healthcare service delivery. Olga graduated from La Trobe university with first class honours in 2000, and over the past 22 years has worked in multiple acute teaching hospitals in Australia (Royal Melbourne Hospital, Western Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital, Monash Medical Centre) and the UK (National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Charing Cross Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, and others). Since 2004 she has concurrently run a successful mobile Speech Pathology practice servicing residential aged care homes (RACHs) and acute hospitals. In her private work, Olga observed that older adults in RACHs in Australia experienced difficulty accessing instrumental swallowing assessments and that an onsite instrumental swallowing assessment model was not supported by her professional body. She commenced her PhD research program to generate evidence about onsite mobile flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (mFEES). Olga is also working to raise community, government, and professional awareness of mobile FEES by lobbying government ministers, health departments, through social media and by initiating the first international mFEES special interest group and research database.
Abstracts this author is presenting: