Annual NICHE Conference promotes best practices for caring for older adults

Abstract

NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders) recently concluded its Annual Conference in Chicago. The conference attracted 920 nurses and other health care professionals from 370 organizations whose shared purpose is to improve the quality of care for older adults. An international programwas included this year and, facilities from 46 states and seven countries d Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and the U.S.dwere represented. Meeting and networking with health care professionals from around the world combined with the most robust schedule NICHE has ever offered made for an outstanding conference! The theme of this year’s conference was “Care Across the Continuum.” The theme signaled NICHE’s expansion into the post-acute care arena to help improve treatment outcomes, older adult care, and staff competencies in long term care facilities, assisted living centers, and home health. “With shifting patient populations and the transition to value-based care, it is more important than ever that health systems implement programs to provide outstanding care to older adults across all settings,” said Holly Brown, MSN, GNP-BC, NICHE Director of Programs. “NICHE is a proven strategy for achieving this. The 2016 Annual NICHE Conference gave attendees a wide range of innovations to foster the change we need to better care for our older adults.” During the conference, attendees heard from leading gerontology researchers and practitioners about best practices for care of older adults. Four keynotes, 78 podium presentations, 60 roundtable discussions, and over 95 poster presentations offered ways to identify, prevent, reduce, and manage typical geriatric syndromes (falls with injury, pressure ulcers, delirium, etc), as well as proven methods for implementing and sustaining initiatives. New this year was the NICHE-Partners Summit. In a series of breakout sessions, six organizations that are aligned with NICHE made presentations with established NICHE sites on a variety of