The Southeast Texas Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (SETxGWEP) has developed the following training to enhance geriatrics in primary care and incorporate age-friendly health systems throughout academic primary care networks and community-based primary care sites.
Geriatrics for Primary Care and Hospitalists
Understanding Comprehensive Care for Older Adults
This 5-hour course is designed to teach primary care providers and hospitalists, the backbone of medical care for older Americans, to effectively identify, evaluate, and treat conditions unique to older adults. The course focuses on geriatric clinical issues commonly encountered in both inpatient and outpatient care settings. Lectures are presented by SETxGWEP geriatric faculty who are nationally recognized for their expertise in chronic disease management and will involve best practice strategies and education through case studies, lectures, and suggested readings. Each session includes a knowledge quiz and explanations of the correct answers.
The 4Ms of Age-Friendly Care
Creating Age-Friendly Health Systems
In the past century, we have gone from a society with a large base of youth and an ever-narrowing number of adults who reach advanced age to a society with a smaller youth base than adults. The gap between full-time geriatricians and the demand was already quite wide in 2013, according to the American Geriatrics Society. Extrapolating from the data, the gap will widen considerably by 2025.
Dr. Kevin Foley and Dr. Clare Luz looked broadly at the healthcare workforce to include family and general internal medicine physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and home health providers. The authors still predict a persistent unmet need for medical practices that focus on the needs of older adults. Meeting this challenge head-on, Age-Friendly Health Systems is the joint initiative of The John A. Harford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement along with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. The current goal of the initiative is to spread the Age-Friendly 4M Framework rapidly to 2,600 medical practices and U.S. hospitals by June 2023.
Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Apply interprofessional and interconnected approaches of the Age-Friendly 4M Framework in their professional role.
- Describe a method to align care with an older adult’s health outcome goals and care preferences.
- Identify the need for de-prescribing and dose adjustments when using high-risk medications.
- List the benefits of identifying dementia in older adults, resources for assessment, and supportive interventions.
- Describe the relationship between normal aging and dementia.
- Discuss how mobility affects the other three Ms of Age-Friendly Health Systems.
This activity is intended for physicians, physician assistants, physical therapists, nurse practitioners, ambulatory clinic nurses, pharmacists, social workers, licensed professional counselors, and public health professionals. There is 1 CE credit associated with completion of the module for all targeted discipline.
Matters Most
Patient Priorities Care Training
Chronic disease management is complicated by the difficulties of managing multiple, simultaneous, interactive problems. Healthcare for patients with multiple chronic conditions is often fragmented and burdensome and does not always address what matters most to patients. Patient Priorities Care (PPC) is a framework to align healthcare decisions with individual patient health outcome goals and care preferences. This 3-part, narrated video training introduces how the PPC approach works and explores the application and implementation of the PPC approach for healthcare staff who identify priorities, and for clinicians who align care with identified priorities.
IDENTIFYING HEALTHCARE PRIORITIES
For healthcare staff of all disciplines to learn how to work with patients to identify their health priorities, which includes their core life values, health outcome goals and healthcare preferences.
ALIGNING DECISIONS AND CARE WITH PATIENTS’ HEALTH PRIORITIES
For healthcare providers to learn decisional strategies to identify and overcome typical challenges faced while operationalizing care plan changes guided by identified patient priorities.
PATIENT PRIORITIES CARE TELE EDUCATIONAL COURSE (March 21-June 13, 2023)
For health professional leaders and educators who want to transform clinical care to focus on What Matters or carry out curricula to educate others to provide care that aligns with What Matters.
Mentation
Depression Education
Non-geriatric professionals often lack specific training in recognizing and addressing geriatric mental health concerns that can exacerbate physical health conditions. The dementia education provides information about the most effective models of screening and monitoring depression in primary care. The training also helps to identify self-help interventions for prevention and treatment of late-life depression.
Delirium Education
Delirium is a very common problem that increases mortality. However, it is frequently unrecognized, which yields poor outcomes for older adults. It is strongly recommended that patients are screened for delirium using formal tools due to this poor recognition. This training is designed to teach you how to look for sources of agitation and use anti-psychotic medications only when needed.
Anxiety Education
Anxiety is underdiagnosed in older adults. It is not commonly assessed in clinics and detection/diagnosis is complicated by factors such as cognitive decline and medical co-morbidity. Part 1 of this 2-part training helps identify symptoms and characteristics of anxiety in older adults. It also summarizes basic diagnostic features and screening questions for common anxiety disorders in older adults. Part 2 addresses the clinical management of anxiety in older people.
Practicing Cultural Humility in Geriatric Mental Health
This training provides information on the importance of cultural humility, the benefits of employing cultural humility, and strategies for incorporating cultural humility in their care of older adults.
Dementia Education
Clinicians who care for older adults will, at some point, encounter persons with dementia or another cognitive disorder. The Program for Advancing Cognitive disorders Education for Rural Staff (PACERS) consist of training modules which were developed by the U.S Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) faculty and are suitable for all clinicians who care for older adults with cognitive disorders. Using clinical cases, the modules help you to learn about delirium and dementia and their evaluation and treatment. Additionally, the content reviews normal aging and how to address the individual with dementia and their caregivers' psychosocial needs.
Project ECHO
Project ECHO is a program focusing on the care of adults with dementia, behavioral management, and ethical issues in the recruitment of older adults into research. It is an innovative distance-learning model to build workforce capacity and improve access to specialty care by providing front-line clinicians with the knowledge and support they need to manage patients in their own communities.
The ECHO program provides an opportunity to build your expertise and become a leader in dementia care. Using web-based video conference technology, expert interdisciplinary specialist teams and community practice teams come together in 11 monthly, hour-long learning sessions and engage in case-based learning and brief didactic presentations. Dementia experts mentor and teach, and clinicians retain responsibility for their patients’ care, fostering an “all teach, all learn” environment.
Medication
Pain Management and Opioid Use in Older Adults
With the growing opioid pandemic, there is a need to educate prescribers on appropriate utilization of opioids in their care of older adults. There is also a need to familiarize physicians with the Texas State code requirements regarding proper screening and pain management contracts.
This training helps to incorporate:
- The utilization of opioid risk tools or other screening tool(s) into your practice.
- The practice of reviewing the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) before prescribing any controlled substances.
This two-part online lecture aimed at prescribing healthcare providers including, physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, social workers, and other healthcare professionals, lasts for 2 hours and has been designated by Baylor College of Medicine for Continuing Education credits. Click below for more detailed information and to get started.
Mobility
Geriatric Oral Health for Non-Dental Professionals (Didactics)
Poor oral health and hygiene, especially among cognitively-impaired older adults, can have dramatic impacts on the 4Ms of unique care considerations for older adults: Matters Most, Medications, Mentation, and Mobility. This 25-minute video training provides more information on how oral health impacts the 4Ms of Age-Friendly care.
Geriatric Oral Health Care for Non-Dental Professionals (Demonstration)
Older adults have an increased risk of painful and debilitating oral health conditions, like oral cancers, cavities, gum disease, and dry mouth. These conditions can greatly impact nutrition, mobility, and function. This 9-minute video training demonstrates how non-dental providers can screen older patients for oral health concerns. The training discusses the unique oral health considerations to look for in older patients and tips to address common issues.
Age-Friendly Care for Dentists: The impact of aging on oral health, function, and mobility
Older adults with cognitive difficulties frequently have debilitating oral health conditions, which are exacerbated by their cognitive issues, like oral cancers, cavities, gum disease, and dry mouth. These conditions can greatly impact nutrition, mobility, and function. This module discusses how oral health is impacted by cognitive difficulties within the 4Ms framework.
Osteoporosis Management and Treatment
This module covers screening, assessing, and management tools for the care of osteoporosis. The content is aimed at undergraduate students in the health professions (e.g., PA students, upper-level UME, nursing students) who have done clinical rotations. Learners will review the module and provide pre- and post-assessments to assess attitudes and knowledge on the topic of osteoporosis.
Please take the Pre-test survey BEFORE accessing the content.
Safe Patient Handling and Falls Management for Ambulatory Care
This training discusses the fall risks for geriatric patients in hospital and community settings, how to counsel patients/caregivers about fall prevention, and the use of EPIC to help initiate early nursing fall prevention strategies.