ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The rapidly aging US population is resulting in major challenges including delivering quality care at lower costs in the face of a critical health-care workforce shortage. The movement toward home care has dramatically increased the need for qualified, paid personal care aides (PCAs). Adequate PCA training that focuses on skills for person-centered, at home support is an imperative. This study provides evidence that clients of PCAs who have completed a comprehensive, evidence-based PCA training program, titled Building Training Building Quality (BTBQ), report higher satisfaction and better health outcomes, compared to clients of PCAs with lesser or other training. METHODS: A mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design was used to compare self-reported survey responses from clients of BTBQ-trained PCAs (treatment group) with responses from clients of non-BTBQ-trained PCAs (control group). RESULTS: Clients of BTBQ-trained PCAs had significantly fewer falls and emergency department visits compared to clients whose PCAs had no BTBQ training (P < .05). Conclusion: BTBQ-like PCA training reduces costly adverse events.
ABSTRACT
A workforce that understands principles of geriatric medicine is critical to addressing the care needs of the growing elderly population. This will be impossible without a substantial increase in academicians engaged in education and aging research. Limited support of early-career clinician-educators is a major barrier to attaining this goal. The Geriatric Academic Career Award (GACA) was a vital resource that benefitted 222 junior faculty members. GACA availability was interrupted in 2006, followed by permanent discontinuation after the Geriatrics Workforce Education Program (GWEP) subsumed it in 2015, leaving aspiring clinician-educators with no similar alternatives. GACA recipients were surveyed in this cross-sectional, multimethod study to assess the effect of the award on career development, creation and dissemination of educational products, funding discontinuation consequences, and implications of program closure for the future of geriatric health care. Uninterrupted funding resulted in fulfillment of GACA goals (94%) and overall career success (96%). Collectively, awardees reached more than 40,700 learners. Funding interruption led to 55% working additional hours over and above an increased clinical workload to continue their GACA-related research and scholarship. Others terminated GACA projects (36%) or abandoned academic medicine altogether. Of respondents currently at GWEP sites (43%), only 13% report a GWEP budget including GACA-like support. Those with GWEP roles attributed their current standing to experience gained through GACA funding. These consequences are alarming and represent a major setback to academic geriatrics. GACA's singular contribution to the mission of geriatric medicine must prompt vigorous efforts to restore it as a distinct funding opportunity.
