Click here for the Family Medicine Home Page Click here for the UC Irvine Home Page Click here for the School of Medicine Home Page
 
 

Cultivating a culture of caring for older adults (C3OA)

ALT text
Dr. Lisa Gibbs, the principal investigator for the UCI GWEP, works to help meet the unique needs of a growing elder population.

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.

 

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).

 

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.