Cultivating a culture of caring for older adults (C3OA)

UCI GWEP was launched to meet the needs of a burgeoning elder population.

To meet the care needs of an expanding elderly population, the UC Irvine School of Medicine collaborated with the UCI School of Nursing and other community partners to develop the GWEP, which is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration.

It is our hope that this program can serve as a model for cultivating a culture of caring for older adults that geriatric workforces around the U.S. can borrow.

The first focus area is the transformation of clinical training environments to integrate geriatrics and primary care delivery systems and train workforces that are competent in geriatric medical care.

A resident-run geriatric clinic was developed at the UC Irvine Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Santa Ana. In this clinic, a team-based approach is used to conduct assessments of older adults regarding memory and functional assessment.  Geriatricians, psychiatrists, social workers and pharmacists work together with residents to assess complex geriatric cases. Family Medicine Residents engage in geriatric medicine education through rotations in the Geriatric Clinic at the FQHC and through the longitudinal geriatric medicine series integrated into the mandatory lecture series for all Family Medicine residents, nurse practitioner and nursing students.

• A Transitions of Care study was designed to identify the factors that impact transitions of care from hospital discharge to home by surveying patients scheduled at a post-hospitalization clinic at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

The second focus area involves training providers who work with older adults and their families and caregivers at the individual, community, and population levels.

• We developed and offered mini-fellowships for practicing healthcare professionals of all disciplines to our UC Irvine Faculty and staff, and our partners, AltaMed and Southland Integrated, Inc. These mini-fellowships focused on primary care Geriatrics. Training presentations and materials from the mini-fellowships can be found here.
• Participants of the mini-fellowships engaged in a longitudinal mentorship with UC Irvine geriatricians to support their learning and answer questions about patient care and other processes. Contact a Geriatric Mentor here.

A third focus area includes creating and delivering community-based programs provide patients, families and caregivers with the knowledge and skills to improve health outcomes and the quality of care for the older adult(s).

• Information gathered from cohort studies of the Hispanic, Vietnamese, Korean, and LGBTQ communities, allowed us to deliver culturally sensitive presentations for patients and caregivers in the community.
• We partnered with the UC Irvine School of Nursing and the Orange County Social Services Agency’s IHSS program in training In Home Support Service (IHSS) clients and caregivers. A collaborative IHSS and Nursing training program was integrated into the curriculum of our Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and Master’s Entry Program of Nursing students (MEPN). This program allowed students to build upon classroom didactics by applying their knowledge by teaching and developing interactive workshops to teach needed nursing aid skills to IHSS caregivers in the community.

Focus area four includes ADRD education and training to families, caregivers, direct care workers, and health professions providers.

• Aside from improving patient care through dementia registries for care management, we are partnering with the Alzheimer’s Orange County to develop a unique curriculum for healthcare providers to use at the point of care, called A Clinician’s Guide to Dementia Care.