Components and Outcomes in Under- and Postgraduate Medical Education to Prepare for the Delivery of Integrated Care for the Elderly: A Scoping Review.

Abstract

The ageing society requires physicians who can deliver integrated care, but it is unclear how they should be prepared for doing so. This scoping review aims to create an overview of educational programmes that prepare (future) physicians to deliver integrated care while addressing components and outcomes of the interventions. We included papers from five databases that contained: (1) integrated care (2) education programme (3) medical students (4) elderly, or synonyms. We divided the WHO definition of integrated care into ten components for the concept of 'integrated care'. Data were collected with a charting template, and template analysis was used to formulate themes. We found 17 educational programmes in different learning settings. All programmes addressed several components of the WHO definition. The programmes primarily focused on care for individual patients (micro-level), and the outcomes suggested that experiencing the complexity of care is key. This review revealed the limited evidence on educational programmes about integrated care for the elderly. Our findings suggest that educational programmes on integrated care should not be limited to the micro-level, and that students should obtain adaptive expertise by experiencing complexity. Future research should contain an explicit description and definition of integrated care.