Dear Friends,

HIGN was established 25 years ago to increase the capacity of the workforce to provide age-appropriate care to older adults. It was well recognized many years ago that the care required by older adults was just not the same as the care required by younger adults. The education of health professionals has evolved over the past few decades to incorporate evidence-based content on how aging impacts the presentation, progression, and treatment of disease. Still, that knowledge has not always transferred into the practice of busy health professionals. Establishing protocols, guidelines, standards, or pathways to hardwire evidence-based practice is often necessary. The electronic medical record (EMR) has facilitated the use of evidence by triggering prompts to guide best practice. 

During the past few years, two of the important initiatives funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation to guide the practice of caring for older adults were the 4Ms, developed by IHI, and the Geriatric Surgery Verification Program (GSV), developed by the American College of Surgeons. The 4Ms framework organizes the care of older adults around the areas of What Matters (to the older adult), Medication, Mentation, and Mobility. The GSV provides standards of practice for older adults having a surgical procedure. 

HIGN is excited to have added to our many resources for building the capacity of the workforce to care for older adults with a new product that merges these two initiatives. This month we are launching a new learning series, "Integrating the Geriatric Surgery Verification (GSV) Program with the 4Ms." This work was done in partnership and with support from Rochester Regional Health. Both IHI and the ACS served in a consultant capacity to validate the accuracy of the content. A didactic, interactive module provides information on both the 4Ms and the GSV. It takes the learner through a patient's surgical experience illustrating how the 4Ms can be used in implementing the GSV standards. There are also 4 companion case studies, with each one presenting a patient at a particular phase of the perioperative experience. 

Learners will be able to discover and determine what matters to an older adult who is having surgery, recognize the risks and limitations of multiple medications for older adults having surgery, illustrate the importance of maintaining mobility in older adults throughout the surgical experience, and recognize the signs and symptoms of mentation in older adults having surgery. The case studies included in the series give the learner the experience of transferring the content from the module into a clinical scenario. This should reinforce the ability of the learner to apply their knowledge of the 4Ms and the Geriatric Surgery Verification Program to their practice and provide older adults with that age-sensitive care that is so important to achieving good outcomes. 

Happy Spring!