Geriatric Workforce program at URI aims to improve elder health care

With a $3.75 Million dollar grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, URI College of Health Sciences Professor Phillip Clark is leading a team of health care professionals in a statewide initiative to develop an age- and dementia-friendly workforce with the aim of improving the quality of health services and outcomes for older adults.

The Rhode Island Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program will support a five-year project to better train health care providers through multi-modal education opportunities on topics pertinent to caring for older adults such as fall prevention, multiple medication prescribing, dementia care and more.

In conjunction to providing education, the RW-GWEP will evaluate effectiveness of the training and its subsequent impact on Rhode Island’s older adults by examining key data from electronic medical records from participating practices, self-reporting from providers and records of services provided. In essence, the preeminent metric Clark and his team seek to measure is whether physicians change their clinical behavior as a result of participation in the educational programs, and does that practice transformation manifest in improved patient outcomes?

More information and details can be found HERE

Partners in the program include URI, Healthcentric Advisers, Brown University, Rhode Island College, Care New England Health System, Integra Community Care Network, Care New England Medical Group, Care Transformation Collaborative, RI Primary Care Physicians Corporation and the Alzheimer’s Association of Rhode Island.