Improving Treatment of Elderly Patients by Interprofessional Education in a Quality Network of Geriatric Medicine: Protocol for Evaluating an Educational Initiative

Background: All statistics on the development of demand for care for multimorbid elderly patients highlight the acute pressure to act to adequately respond to the expected increase in geriatric patient population in the next 15 years. Against this background, great importance must be attached to the improvement of cross-occupational group and cross-sector treatment of these patients. In addition, many professionals in the health care sector often have little knowledge about the special treatment and care needs of the elderly. Objective: The Quality Network of Geriatric Medicine in north-west Germany is the body responsible for the project; with its member organizations, it provides care for over 400,000 inpatients and is thus one of the largest associations for geriatrics in Germany. The Quality Network conducts binding evaluated qualification measures for staff involved in the treatment and care of multimorbid elderly patients. The training offers are especially intended for staff who have not yet been trained in working with elderly patients. This approach is intended to improve the expertise of various occupational groups on different hierarchy levels, to include patients and their family members in the evaluation process, and to initiate changes within the organizations. Methods: Various instruments are used in the evaluation of qualification measures: besides written surveys and questionnaires, structured work groups (consensus groups) and interviews are conducted. The evaluation starts before the qualification measures to determine the starting point and then continues during the measure and after its completion. This allows major findings to be integrated directly into the ongoing qualification program. At least 100 trainings on geriatric topics, 80 consensus groups, and 120 patients (and family members) are going to be included in the study. Results: The evaluation of the educational initiative is funded by the State of Northrhine-Westfalia (Germany; LZG TG 71 001/2015 and LZG TG 71 002/2015). The results of the study will be published after review and approval by the state authorities - presumably by the end of 2019. The before and after comparison of the treatment-related outcomes at the beginning and near the completion of the educational initiative gives insights into how transfer-oriented education can improve the treatment of elderly patients across sector lines for inpatients as well as outpatients. The evaluation of the implementation of educational content in day-to-day work and occupational groups is to facilitate recommendations about economically sensible use of educational resources and about further adjustments to the training content. Conclusions: The evaluation develops the foundation for targeted and needs-oriented qualification measures as well as transfer in cross-sector, multiprofessional networks. Instruments and results will be published and provided to other health care networks and institutions. The Quality Network will implement the results of the evaluation process in its member institutions.