September 2010

• Announcements
• New Products
• Recent Comments
• Product Spotlight
• Featured Geriatric Site
• Collaborations
• Annual Meetings

Announcements:

Products from Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative (HGNI) now on POGOe
POGOe is going interprofessional! We would like to extend a warm welcome to the Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative (HGNI) team. Through this partnership we hope to reach a new audience – Nursing educators and Nursing students, and to build an interdisciplinary portal for geriatric educational materials. HGNI will be submitting new products over the next few months and will continue to add to the library thereafter. For a sample of one of their products, check out this video explaining the positive aspects of aging and geriatric nursing: HGNI: The Geriatric Nurse Educator, Caring for the Modern Senior.

Product Reviews in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society (JAGS)
In the September issue of JAGS, you will find two reviews of POGOe products. The first, Review: Women's Health Module by Kathryn E. Callahan, discusses Product #18392 – a web module from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine that contains a detailed case study. [Callahan, K. E. (2010, September). Review: Women's Health Module. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 58(9), 1786-1787. Also available online.]

The second, Review: Health Care Decision-Making WebCT Module for Medical Students by Carol L. Howe, discusses Product #18483 – a web module for 3rd year medical students created at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. [Howe, C. L. (2010, September). Review: Health Care Decision-Making WebCT Module for Medical Students. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 58(9), 1788-1790. Also available online.]

To find out more about writing one of these product reviews for publication in JAGS, send an email to Editor@POGOe.org.

Evidence summaries of journal articles
You can now view evidence summaries of recent journal articles on POGOe's new feature, ReCAP (Repository of Electronic Critically Appraised Papers). The purpose of ReCAP is to provide a forum for geriatrics fellows and faculty where they can discuss the practice of evidence-based medicine in a systematic way, and hone their skills of clinical decision-making by critically examining evidence presented in recent clinical research papers. You can join in the conversation by commenting on these summaries to add your own observations. Take a look at three of the most recent submissions:

• No cost savings, but some favorable outcomes, from Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration by Kathleen Unroe of Duke University


• Retrospective cohort study suggests that commonly prescribed doses of Quetiapine are not associated with short-term increase in mortality by Maria Gestuvo of Mount Sinai School of Medicine


• Frailty, as defined by a 36-item Frailty Index, predicts 10-year mortality among community dwelling older adults in Canada. by Beata Chauhan of Mount Sinai School of Medicine

A Sample of the New Products on POGOe:

• Eliminate Hazards in Your Home: A Safety Checklist with Recommendations #20764 by Maria H van Zuilen, Osvaldo Rodriguez and Michael Mintzer


• Medicine Clerkship Geriatrics Formative OSCE: Older Adult with Fatigue #20696 by Gary Blanchard, Melissa Fischer, Wendy Gammon and Sarah McGee


• The Physician's Role in Medication Reconciliation: Issues, Strategies, and Safety Principles #20710 by Joanne Schwartzberg, Patricia Sokol, Margaret Toepp, et al.

Recent Comments on POGOe Products:

"Great module to use on ICU and Wards." (Delirium in Older Patients: An Online Case-Based Curriculum #20482)

"A very good resource for teaching and review main points of geriatrics practice." (CHAMP (Curriculum for the Hospitalized Aging Medical Patient): PALLIATIVE CARE AND CHANGING GOALS OF CARE #20102).

Product Spotlight:

Competency-Based Test of Inpatient Geriatric Management Skills

Although people over age 65 make up only about 12% of the U.S. population, they account for approximately 35% of all hospital stays (IOM, 2008). Recently a number of products have been developed to help teach care of the hospitalized elderly, particularly the CHAMP series (www.pogoe.org/series/CHAMP). We can teach, but have our learners learned?

The POGOe September Editor's Choice by Drs. Ethan Cumbler and Jeannette Guerrasio from The University of Colorado – Competency-Based Test of Inpatient Geriatric Management Skills – highlights the aging process and common co-morbidities that make older patients present differently than younger patients and often require clinicians to have different skill sets to manage their care. The product assesses selected competencies from the Minimum Geriatric Competencies for Internal Medicine and Family Medicine (IM/FM) Residents. Management of geriatric syndromes in the hospital setting occurs in the milieu of inter-current medical illness, co-morbid conditions, and need to prevent iatrogenic complications. As such, this product also assesses competencies of hospital medicine from The Core Competencies in Hospital Medicine.

Click here for full Editor's Choice product review, to view the product, and to comment and rate this product on POGOe.

Featured Geriatric Site:

Administration on Aging – The Administration on Aging (AoA) is the Federal agency responsible for advancing the concerns and interests of older people and their caregivers. The website provides information and links to other resources that are mostly aimed at older adults and caregivers. It acts as a portal, providing links to other relevant government websites such as www.eldercare.gov, where you can find local agencies to help with things like transportation and meals. Since September is Emergency Preparedness Month, it also has a detailed section on how to prepare for the unexpected with topics such as 'Tips for Preventing Illness during Hot Weather'. There is a section with details about AoA programs such as the Own Your Future Awareness Program, a joint federal-state effort to raise awareness about long-term care. And there is even a section with national statistics on aging, which includes detail such as marital status among older adults, minority aging statistics and projected future growth of the aging population. Learn more at the AoA website, www.aoa.gov.