OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY CREATES PROFOUND IMPACTS ON CLIENT AND PATIENT LIVES
Margeaux Bartholomew-Carle
Occupational Therapist &
Chief Executive Officer, Ardant
PEOPLE IN HEALTH CARE
Filmed in Adelaide, South Australia | December 2024
In Australia, access to allied health services such as occupational therapy is increasingly challenging. Barriers like long wait times affect over 600,000 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and 1.5 million aged care participants. With both cohorts expected to grow exponentially in coming years, the pressure on an already stretched system is set to increase.
Australian Health Journal met with one Occupational Therapist who encourages those entering the profession to embrace continuous learning and seek mentorship to maximise their impact on clients’ lives. Through her company she has a nation-wide mission to transform client access to allied health services like occupational therapy using artificial intelligence (AI).
Margeaux Bartholomew-Carle is an Adelaide based registered Occupational Therapist and the Founder and CEO of Ardant.
Throughout her career, Margeaux has worked in various settings, including aged care, disability, assistive technology, prescription, and mental health. This diverse experience has deepened her understanding of the different needs among client groups.
A significant turning point came when she worked as a solo practitioner and realised that the heavy administrative burden often kept her from important family moments, especially while her father was in the hospital with advanced prostate cancer. This experience motivated her to establish Ardant, focused on enabling OTs to prioritise client care over administrative tasks.
Under her leadership, Ardant has created an all-in-one online practice management platform designed to reduce administrative burdens for independent occupational therapists across Australia, ultimately enhancing access to OT services and improving client outcomes.
Margeaux believes that the role of occupational therapists is gaining recognition, particularly with the introduction of the NDIS, but acknowledges there are persistent misconceptions about the profession. To raise awareness, she advocates for targeted campaigns to educate GPs, health professionals, and the public about the value of OT in primary healthcare.
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Raising awareness, engagement and inclusion of Allied Health
Anita Hobson-Powell holds the position of Chief Allied Health Officer for the Australian Government within the Department of Health and Aged Care. With a background as an exercise physiologist and extensive experience leading allied health professional associations*, she has been entrusted with three main priorities. First, she aims to raise awareness about the significance of allied health professionals and their role in the healthcare system. This involves ensuring that decision makers and individuals engaging with health services understand the contributions of allied health professionals.
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HIGHLIGHTS The power of social determinants of health, panel discussion
Clinicians and consumers know only too well that life circumstances such as poor housing, income and food insecurity can have a negative impact on health outcomes. Conversely, participation in community activities, social connection and access to nature parks and leisure facilities can help maintain health and wellbeing.
More recent phenomena in public health have also focused us on the health and social care connection. Stress factors such as the sudden loss of employment and social interaction, moving to remote work or schooling, and the impacts of sudden, localised COVID-19 ‘lockdowns’ to prevent further outbreaks were triggers of increased psychological distress.
And loneliness is being described as our latest epidemic with chronic loneliness inked to a myriad of health problems and earlier death. A recent report found one in four Australians say they feel persistently lonely, and that loneliness costs $2.7 bn a year in health costs alone.
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Mission to raise awareness of sarcoma and need for clinical trial funding
Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, remains the deadliest cancer for children and young adults, accounting for nearly one third (30%) of cancer-related deaths among those aged 15–24 and one tenth (10%) of those aged 0–14. Further, still severely under-diagnosed, sarcoma only accounts for one sixth (15%) of all cancer diagnoses in the 15 – 24 age group, and less than a tenth (8%) among children under 10.
