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Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults

Primary care practices lack the time, expertise, and resources to perform traditional comprehensive geriatric assessment. In particular, they need methods to improve their capacity to identify and care for older adults with complex care needs, such as cognitive impairment. As the US population ages,...

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Autores principales: Buhr, Gwendolen, Dixon, Carrissa, Dillard, Jan, Nickolopoulos, Elissa, Bowlby, Lynn, Canupp, Holly, Matters, Loretta, Konrad, Thomas, Previll, Laura, Heflin, Mitchell, McConnell, Eleanor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6960766/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31640232
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics4040059
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author Buhr, Gwendolen
Dixon, Carrissa
Dillard, Jan
Nickolopoulos, Elissa
Bowlby, Lynn
Canupp, Holly
Matters, Loretta
Konrad, Thomas
Previll, Laura
Heflin, Mitchell
McConnell, Eleanor
author_facet Buhr, Gwendolen
Dixon, Carrissa
Dillard, Jan
Nickolopoulos, Elissa
Bowlby, Lynn
Canupp, Holly
Matters, Loretta
Konrad, Thomas
Previll, Laura
Heflin, Mitchell
McConnell, Eleanor
author_sort Buhr, Gwendolen
collection PubMed
description Primary care practices lack the time, expertise, and resources to perform traditional comprehensive geriatric assessment. In particular, they need methods to improve their capacity to identify and care for older adults with complex care needs, such as cognitive impairment. As the US population ages, discovering strategies to address these complex care needs within primary care are urgently needed. This article describes the development of an innovative, team-based model to improve the diagnosis and care of older adults with cognitive impairment in primary care practices. This model was developed through a mentoring process from a team with expertise in geriatrics and quality improvement. Refinement of the existing assessment process performed during routine care allowed patients with cognitive impairment to be identified. The practice team then used a collaborative workflow to connect patients with appropriate community resources. Utilization of these processes led to reduced referrals to the geriatrics specialty clinic, fewer patients presenting in a crisis to the social worker, and greater collaboration and self-efficacy for care of those with cognitive impairment within the practice. Although the model was initially developed to address cognitive impairment, the impact has been applied more broadly to improve the care of older adults with multimorbidity.
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spelling pubmed-69607662020-01-24 Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults Buhr, Gwendolen Dixon, Carrissa Dillard, Jan Nickolopoulos, Elissa Bowlby, Lynn Canupp, Holly Matters, Loretta Konrad, Thomas Previll, Laura Heflin, Mitchell McConnell, Eleanor Geriatrics (Basel) Article Primary care practices lack the time, expertise, and resources to perform traditional comprehensive geriatric assessment. In particular, they need methods to improve their capacity to identify and care for older adults with complex care needs, such as cognitive impairment. As the US population ages, discovering strategies to address these complex care needs within primary care are urgently needed. This article describes the development of an innovative, team-based model to improve the diagnosis and care of older adults with cognitive impairment in primary care practices. This model was developed through a mentoring process from a team with expertise in geriatrics and quality improvement. Refinement of the existing assessment process performed during routine care allowed patients with cognitive impairment to be identified. The practice team then used a collaborative workflow to connect patients with appropriate community resources. Utilization of these processes led to reduced referrals to the geriatrics specialty clinic, fewer patients presenting in a crisis to the social worker, and greater collaboration and self-efficacy for care of those with cognitive impairment within the practice. Although the model was initially developed to address cognitive impairment, the impact has been applied more broadly to improve the care of older adults with multimorbidity. MDPI 2019-10-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6960766/ /pubmed/31640232 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics4040059 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Buhr, Gwendolen
Dixon, Carrissa
Dillard, Jan
Nickolopoulos, Elissa
Bowlby, Lynn
Canupp, Holly
Matters, Loretta
Konrad, Thomas
Previll, Laura
Heflin, Mitchell
McConnell, Eleanor
Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title_full Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title_fullStr Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title_full_unstemmed Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title_short Geriatric Resource Teams: Equipping Primary Care Practices to Meet the Complex Care Needs of Older Adults
title_sort geriatric resource teams: equipping primary care practices to meet the complex care needs of older adults
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6960766/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31640232
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics4040059
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