Working together to improve care
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| updated March 29, 2010 |
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The Geriatric Education and Recruitment Initiative
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The GERI Collaboration
A t the Canadian Geriatrics Society annual meeting in 2007, representatives from a variety of disciplines got together to discuss the “Future of Geriatrics”. Although this meeting focused on geriatric medicine, it did involve other disciplines in medicine and health care. One of the recommendations arising from this meeting was that a coalition be established to improve the image of aging and thereby help with increasing interest (or at least decrease bias against) fields with a focus in care of older people.
Preliminary meetings were held with several organizations to discuss possible organizational structures that would be feasible and effective. Given input from the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health, it was decided to function as a collaboration between a number of organizations which focus on geriatric care. All the participating groups identify recruitment issues to their fields and all felt that improving education in geriatric care and improving the image of aging was a crucial strategy to improve recruitment. Consumer and advocacy groups are represented given the increasing concern within seniors’ organizations about shortages of physicians with skills and knowledge in care of older people.
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dr. chris frank
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on this topic
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We chose the name GERI collaboration (Geriatric Education and Recruitment Initiative) to reflect our interest in using education to improve the image of aging and to assist in recruitment to geriatric fields. The education efforts will target students and health care trainees but will also include the general public and policy makers / health authorities.
Background
Membership
The following organizations have committed to participate in the GERI collaborative and have members providing “sweat equity” in our activities.
- Canadian Gerontological Nurses Association
- Canadian Geriatrics Society
- Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry
- Canadian Association of Retired People (CARP)
- Long term care Medical Directors Association of Canada
- Canadian Association on Gerontology
- Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health
- National Initiative for Care of the Elderly
- Canadian Pensioners Concerned
Current activities
All members view the fact that these groups are working together and regularly discussing issues and common concerns as a positive outcome. Despite our similar interests, there has been little collaboration in advocacy and education in the past. Given the current push to interdisciplinary education and the importance of interdisciplinary care in geriatrics, our collaboration is timely.
We are early in our development but have been involved in the following activities:
- Human Health Resources has funded a project entitled: Improving Health Human Resources for Canada’s Aging Population: Recruiting Students to the Field of Aging. This $73000 project will try to collect interdisciplinary geriatric education resources nationally and support development of interdisciplinary geriatric interest groups at several health science centres across the country
- Development of proposals to collaborate with corporations to use positive images of aging in advertising
- Identification of prominent spokesperson to link with promotional campaign for public and/or health trainees
- Campaign to raise money from organizations’ membership to support AFRAN project (geriatric capacity-building in sub-Saharan Africa).
- Promotion of respective organizations’ core competencies for education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels
- Applications for business funding for Geriatric Interest Groups modeled on family medicine experience
We have much to do and limited funding from inside and outside our organizations. However, member organizations are committed to the goals of the project and are providing time and energy to the projects. We welcome ideas and suggestions from others in the field of geriatric care and recognize the role many health professionals play in educating trainees and acting as role models to attract people to our fields. Most professionals with a focus on geriatric care have a passion for this care and try to share that passion with their students and residents. GERI hopes to help with these individual efforts. |
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