Interprofessional geriatric assessment in nursing home (IgAP): a curricular development in geriatrics

The hallmark of medical action in geriatrics is the interprofessional treatment of the patient by a multi-professional team consisting of doctors, nurses and therapists with the aim of treating the patients primarily in a way that preserves their function and thereby enabling them to live as independently as possible. Therefore, at the beginning of every geriatric treatment, there is a multiprofessional geriatric assessment of functional abilities. With regard to successful medical action, this necessarily requires all health professions involved to understand geriatric patients and their limitations. Under ideal circumstances, their competencies overlap. From the point of view of the related disciplines, this means to teach working together with the other professions – interprofessionally – and learning from one another in order to effectively collaborate. After comparing the existing education in geriatrics within the Medical Curriculum Munich (MeCuM) with the European catalog of learning objectives for geriatricians (UEMS-GMS), a deficit with regard to geriatric assessment was recognized in the field of multi-professional training. Therefore, the existing geriatric curriculum of the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich should be expanded to include an interprofessional course on geriatric assessment. This project report aims to show the development and implementation of this course. For this purpose, the model for curriculum development according to Kern was used by the planners to establish an interprofessional briefing. Due to its innovative character, the course received public recognition and is the basis for the expansion of interprofessionalism in the sense of professional cooperation in geriatrics. Establishing interprofessionalism in other disciplines and locations is welcome.