Building the future geriatrics workforce through transformative interprofessional education and community-engaged experiential learning

Abstract

Abstract The number of older Americans, ages 65 years and above, is projected to more than double from 46 million in 2014 to 98 million by 2060.1 Despite these projections, the number of health professionals trained to address the needs of this population is declining and a shortage has been projected across the country by 2025.2-4 To address this health workforce gap, the Institute of Medicine report, Retooling for an Aging America5 calls for enhanced geriatric training across health professions, and a growing body of evidence supports the value of interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice. To respond to the urgent need for a better geriatric trained workforce, we developed an interprofessional course, “Scholars and Leaders in Interprofessional Geriatrics (SLIG)”, designed to enable health science students from different professions to acquire knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of integrated ethical geriatric care, in a variety of healthcare settings (i.e., community care, house calls, post-acute rehabilitation care, and hospice), as part of an interprofessional (IP) team. The learning activities include experiential and didactic learning for six weeks. Course learning objectives are aimed at enabling students to: apply patient- and family-centered approaches for addressing health disparities among older adults; define transitional care and explain the factors affecting effective care transitions and strategies for addressing the needs of older adults at various levels of care; and describe the four Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies5 and apply these to IP team work in a geriatric care setting. Together, these learning objectives address the continuum of care of older adults, including the trajectory of illness, at different levels including transitions of care. Our mixed-methods program evaluation approach utilized the IPECC-Set 38 6,7 self-efficacy tool in a post-program evaluation survey. The IPECC-SET 38 tool assessed students’ self-efficacy in interprofessional collaborative practice. The tool was developed and validated6,7 by the co-authors and colleagues. A program evaluation survey was administered to all students. The data demonstrated that the participating students consider the course to be beneficial, with 100% of students (n = 30) reporting program learning goals were met and that the program addressed all four IPEC domains. We are encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive response by our students to this IPE course and we plan to continue to contribute to developing the future geriatric IP workforce.