The North East Specialized Geriatric Services (NESGC), Seniors Care Network, and Laurentian Research Institute for Aging (LRIA) joined forces to create a Compendium of Educational Offerings relevant to Interprofessional Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment. The compendium provides an extensive array of educational offerings that a health professional can utilize to respond to their learning needs as shown by the self-assessment. This valuable educational tool supports providers seeking to translate the Competency Framework for Interprofessional CGA into positive, interprofessional geriatric practice change.
The Framework describes detailed practice expectations of health professionals participating in the CGA in order to help them adequately prepare themselves to deliver interprofessional comprehensive geriatric assessments and interventions and work effectively in a specialized geriatrics environment. The Framework is organized into six practice areas which include 99 behavioural statements that are intended to describe the knowledge, skills, attitudes, judgments and actions expected of members of the interprofessional team participating in the CGA. The Framework outlined several implications for practice including: (1) improved quality of assessments; (2) improved goal-based care planning; (3) better tailoring of appropriate interventions; (4) appropriate follow-up and follow through; and (5) improved consistency in assessment practices across SGS providers.
In developing the Competency Framework, the Working Group recognized the importance of health professionals having a way to assess their knowledge against the behavioural statements, and subsequently access educational offerings to assist them in increasing competence in areas identified as having learning needs. The Interprofessional Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) Self-Assessment Tool was developed for that purpose. The tool was developed to support the growth of the core competencies outlined in the CGA Framework.
In addition to development of the self-assessment tool, the Knowledge to Action working group identified the need for learners to have access to freely available and high quality educational offerings to support any areas of improvement identified on self-assessment. The final result is a 70 page compendium of educational offerings containing over 250 free resources that can be easily accessed online. These offerings vary widely in media type and include learning modules, powerpoint presentations, lecture slides, videos, pdf documents, and conference recordings, among others. In section two, more than 20 educational offerings are provided, mostly in the form of courses that can be taken online or in a classroom setting, such as Gentle Persuasive Approaches (GPA) in Dementia Care. These offerings have varying costs, time requirements and delivery methods. The third section includes over 15 CPD programs offered by colleges in Ontario and Quebec, as well as close to 10 CPD programs offered by universities. Most of these programs can be completed online. There are varying degrees of complexity across the entire compendium of resources, from a simple list of factors to consider when evaluating sleep in older adults, to a very comprehensive geriatric certificate program that is endorsed by McMaster University. Once a clinician has evaluated his or her learning needs using the Self-Assessment Tool, these compendium resources may be utilized to help increase competence in the practice areas of the CGA Framework.