About Us
The United States continues to experience marked growth in the number of its citizens aged 65 and older. Nearly every medical specialty within academic medical centers must prepare the future physician workforce to care responsibly and compassionately for the elderly. Academic centers must engage all levels of training and practice, to provide safe, timely, effective, patient-centered, equitable and efficient geriatric care to this potentially vulnerable population.
The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center accept this responsibility and have created the Vanderbilt-Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center (VR-GEC) with the goals of designing, implementing, evaluating, disseminating and continuously improving geriatric education. The comprehensive VR-GEC strengthens geriatrics training of medical students, residents, faculty, and practicing physicians through innovative curriculum design, informatics-based education available as geriatric patients are seen, and simulated patient encounters that supplement real-world experiences.
These efforts build upon Vanderbilt’s many successful informatics efforts, including electronic capture and concept-based indexing of all medical school curricular content, effective delivery of educational decision support at the point of care through both electronic medical record (EMR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems. These Vanderbilt-developed and maintained systems provide a platform to deliver and reinforce novel geriatrics content that reach virtually 100% of trainees and faculty at VUMC, providing ongoing education during potentially every geriatric patient encounter.
Goal 1: Integrate Geriatrics into the Medical School Curriculum
Develop a competency-based curriculum in geriatrics for each of the four years of medical school that progressively reinforces the biomedical, clinical and behavioral sciences to all 432 medical students (108 per class). Through the faculty- and student-developed KnowledgeMap system, which indexes curricular content by concepts, geriatrics curriculum components will be accessible via the Internet at all times to all students. The Vanderbilt Medical Student Learning Portfolio project and the Healthcare Matrix evaluation tool will identify individual students’ exposure to geriatrics and geriatrics knowledge gaps to permit timely supplemental instruction.
Goal 2: Enhance Medical and Surgical Residency Training Programs in Geriatrics
Create an innovative curriculum and culture of safety and quality in geriatrics for our 760 residents. This consists of specialty-appropriate training (including simulators and standardized patients), teaching involvement by specialty content experts, informatics applications providing education at the point of care, and clinical outcome assessments. Educational content involves summaries of clinical evidence prepared by the Eskind Biomedical Library, including evidence-based geriatrics order sets, web-based monographs, and complex geriatrics patient care advisors. The educational materials will kept current as new geriatric knowledge emerges. Via the EMR system, KnowledgeMap will also deliver relevant curricular content.
Goal 3: Improve Education in Geriatrics for Faculty and Practicing Physicians
Create a Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Service through the Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging to develop appropriate content and continuing medical education (CME) programs to enhance geriatrics knowledge and skills for over 1,000 faculty and affiliated community physicians. Expose physicians to expert geriatricians and “best practices”. KnowledgeMap will capture the CME content and make it widely available electronically, and informatics-developed educational tools will make it available during geriatric patient encounters.
Goal 4: Coordinate Geriatrics Curriculum Elements with Regional Geriatrics Educational Resources
Vanderbilt faculty deliver geriatrics educational programs throughout Tennessee. To better coordinate diverse efforts and to enhance effectiveness, we will use KnowledgeMap to integrate links to local, regional and national educational resources. Conversely, the project website will link and make geriatric educational materials available regionally. The Vanderbilt EMR will be extended to Vanderbilt-affiliated regional healthcare facilities to support geriatric education during patient encounters. Informatics-mediated integration of educational content will provide exportable models of geriatrics education and point-of-care quality improvement.
The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center accept this responsibility and have created the Vanderbilt-Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center (VR-GEC) with the goals of designing, implementing, evaluating, disseminating and continuously improving geriatric education. The comprehensive VR-GEC strengthens geriatrics training of medical students, residents, faculty, and practicing physicians through innovative curriculum design, informatics-based education available as geriatric patients are seen, and simulated patient encounters that supplement real-world experiences.
These efforts build upon Vanderbilt’s many successful informatics efforts, including electronic capture and concept-based indexing of all medical school curricular content, effective delivery of educational decision support at the point of care through both electronic medical record (EMR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems. These Vanderbilt-developed and maintained systems provide a platform to deliver and reinforce novel geriatrics content that reach virtually 100% of trainees and faculty at VUMC, providing ongoing education during potentially every geriatric patient encounter.
Goals of Vanderbilt-Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center
Goal 1: Integrate Geriatrics into the Medical School Curriculum
Develop a competency-based curriculum in geriatrics for each of the four years of medical school that progressively reinforces the biomedical, clinical and behavioral sciences to all 432 medical students (108 per class). Through the faculty- and student-developed KnowledgeMap system, which indexes curricular content by concepts, geriatrics curriculum components will be accessible via the Internet at all times to all students. The Vanderbilt Medical Student Learning Portfolio project and the Healthcare Matrix evaluation tool will identify individual students’ exposure to geriatrics and geriatrics knowledge gaps to permit timely supplemental instruction.
Goal 2: Enhance Medical and Surgical Residency Training Programs in Geriatrics
Create an innovative curriculum and culture of safety and quality in geriatrics for our 760 residents. This consists of specialty-appropriate training (including simulators and standardized patients), teaching involvement by specialty content experts, informatics applications providing education at the point of care, and clinical outcome assessments. Educational content involves summaries of clinical evidence prepared by the Eskind Biomedical Library, including evidence-based geriatrics order sets, web-based monographs, and complex geriatrics patient care advisors. The educational materials will kept current as new geriatric knowledge emerges. Via the EMR system, KnowledgeMap will also deliver relevant curricular content.
Goal 3: Improve Education in Geriatrics for Faculty and Practicing Physicians
Create a Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Service through the Vanderbilt Center for Quality Aging to develop appropriate content and continuing medical education (CME) programs to enhance geriatrics knowledge and skills for over 1,000 faculty and affiliated community physicians. Expose physicians to expert geriatricians and “best practices”. KnowledgeMap will capture the CME content and make it widely available electronically, and informatics-developed educational tools will make it available during geriatric patient encounters.
Goal 4: Coordinate Geriatrics Curriculum Elements with Regional Geriatrics Educational Resources
Vanderbilt faculty deliver geriatrics educational programs throughout Tennessee. To better coordinate diverse efforts and to enhance effectiveness, we will use KnowledgeMap to integrate links to local, regional and national educational resources. Conversely, the project website will link and make geriatric educational materials available regionally. The Vanderbilt EMR will be extended to Vanderbilt-affiliated regional healthcare facilities to support geriatric education during patient encounters. Informatics-mediated integration of educational content will provide exportable models of geriatrics education and point-of-care quality improvement.
