In order to address the needs of the rapidly growing population of vulnerable older adults in the United States, as well as in Kansas, our academic health center would like to help meet the challenge of improving physicians’ training in geriatrics. The University of Kansas proposes to create and maintain a comprehensive, highly innovative and long-lasting medical education program, the Kansas Reynolds Program in Aging for medical students, resident physicians, and medical school faculty. All educational activities will be guided by the principle of providing the trainee an appropriate, broad-based foundation for managing the health care needs of older adult patients, with and without complex comorbid illness, across the continuum of care. Our approach to teaching the delivery of quality care to older adult patients will be to integrate selected quality indicators from the Assessing Care of Vulnerable Elders (ACOVE) project (1), along with the basic geriatric medicine content, into all of our educational materials and methods.
Based on the theme of quality improvement for the health care of older adults, the Kansas Reynolds Program will provide undergraduate medical student and post-graduate resident geriatric medical education, as well as faculty development, in the areas of improving functional independence, avoiding medical errors, appropriate pharmacotherapy, understanding system efficiency and transitions of care. Interwoven with these major grant focuses will be the primary educational objectives of teaching patient and family-centered care, interdisciplinary team management, evidenced-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics support for clinical decision-making.
To read more about the Reynolds Foundation and their Aging and Quality of Life grants go to:
http://www.dwreynolds.org/Programs/National/Aging/AboutAging.htm
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The University of Kansas Medical Center
