Bringing Geriatrics to Primary Care

In partnership with the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement, the CGWEP is engaged with promoting the 4M’s of Age-Friendly Healthcare Systems at 3 local CCRCs. (Learn more about the 4Ms below.) Helping CCRC clinics quantify, document and improve the 4M’s will ensure more appropriate, patient-centered care with the potential to save healthcare dollars.

The 4Ms

As more Americans reach the age of 65, creating create Age-Friendly Health Systems becomes increasingly important. The 4Ms are a tool to keep care age-friendly for these older adults.

The 4Ms—What Matters, Medication, Mind, and Mobility—highlight what matters to older adults, encourage safe medication usage, address mentation (mental activity and thinking), and promote mobility. Below are downloadable resources covering The 4Ms: 

• GWEP UNC 4Ms: Better care for older adults (English)
• GWEP UNC 4Ms Poster (Spanish)
• GWEP UNC 4Ms: The 4Ms are all connected (English)
• GWEP UNC 4Ms: Las 4Ms están todas conectadas (Spanish)
• A Case Study: Spreading the 4Ms and Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System Practice

Working with Emergency Medical Services

The CGWEP has trained a special team of local EMS workers in Orange County, NC on falls prevention. On top of that, the Orange County Department on Aging partnered with the CGWEP and EMS to create a service pattern network under which frequent fallers who call EMS have additional follow up:

• After a fall, EMS workers conduct a second home visit and perform a multifactorial falls risk assessment.
• Patients with a positive assessment receive follow up from a Case Manager at the Department on Aging.
• The Case Manager then facilitates referrals and access to community services.

This project represents an additional falls prevention intervention at different point on the service continuum. But it is also a change in service coordination and patterns which links agencies and health care providers in a more coordinated system.