American Geriatrics Society Presents Graduate Medical Education Reform Recommendations to Institute of Medicine
January 9th, 2013
NEW YORK -- Addressing the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Governance and Financing of Graduate Medical Education (GME) Committee on December 19, 2012, AGS President, James T. Pacala, MD, highlighted the challenges inherent in providing healthcare for older adults and offered AGS' four major suggestions for improving GME:
- Geriatric medicine should be explicitly recognized as a primary care discipline within the GME system. Geriatricians are principally primary care providers for the most complex and frail older adults.
- Medicare GME funding to hospitals and other training sites should be directly linked to the nation's healthcare workforce needs and require that institutions provide training that creates a workforce that is competent to care for older adults.
- Health professionals supported by GME should be competent to care for older adults upon completion of post-graduate training. Specific areas of focus that are relevant to all disciplines are: clinical presentation in the older adult; cognitive status; physiologic changes with aging; functional status; and medication appropriateness and safety.
- GME funding should be used to fund pilot projects and multi-site educational outcomes research that focus on the integration of the skills needed for a workforce to be competent to care for older adults upon completion of training.
About the American Geriatrics Society
The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) is a not-for-profit organization of over 6,000 health professionals devoted to improving the health, independence, and quality of life of all older people. The Society provides leadership to healthcare professionals, policy makers, and the public by implementing and advocating for programs in patient care, research, professional and public education, and public policy.
