Our study assesses changes in students' knowledge and attitudes after participation in an interprofessional, team-based, geriatric home training program. Second-year medical, physician assistant, occupational therapy, social work, and physical therapy students; third-year pharmacy students; and fourth-year dental students were led by interprofessional faculty teams. Student participants were assessed before and after the curriculum using an interprofessional attitudes learning scale. Significant differences and positive data trends were noted at year-end. Our study suggests that early implementation, assessment, and standardization of years of student training is needed for optimal interprofessional geriatric learning. Additionally, alternative student assessment tools should be considered for future studies.

The authors examine common challenges and solutions to integrating occupational therapy in primary care and identify international evidence for occupational therapy in primary care.

The occupational therapy role in system redesign, such as primary care transformation and the move to true patient-centered care, must be nurtured, especially in relation to people with multiple chronic conditions.

This study describes and provides qualitative analysis of an innovative, inter-professional (IP) geriatrics curriculum focused on team-based care with healthy older adults in a home-based community setting. The curriculum consisted of five, four-hour didactic and experiential sessions over one academic year. Dental, medical, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, and physician assistant students were placed into teams led by IP faculty from each health professional school. Teams met with a community-dwelling older adult three times. At the program’s conclusion, students responded to the reflective question “What is the most important learning experience you expect to take away from the geriatric inter-professional training? A qualitative analysis of student responses revealed four common themes from all five professions aligning with curricular goals: (1) health professional roles/scope of practice, (2) geriatric care and health outcomes, (3) team communication/collaboration, and (4) advocating for one’s own profession. As sites for institutional clinical training become scarcer for health professions’ trainees, this study offers both a novel, IP, geriatrics curriculum with didactic/experiential learning through community partnerships in a home-based setting and a reflective evaluation.

Importance: Geriatric, interprofessional primary care training for occupational therapy students is needed. Objective: To measure occupational therapy student-reported knowledge, attitudes, and skills after participation in interprofessional geriatric educational programs. Design: Prospective, observational study with pre-and posttests for the three programs. Participants: Fifty-nine entry-level and postprofessional occupational therapy master's students. Outcomes and Measures: Self-reported familiarity with other professionals' roles, perceptions of interprofessional training, capabilities to conduct assessments, and attitudes of older adults. Results: Students of the three programs (Interprofessional Geriatrics Curriculum [IPGC], Student Senior Partnership Program [SSPP], and Geriatric Assessment Program [GAP]) reported different improvements in familiarity of roles, capabilities of assessment, and Geriatric Attitudes Scale (GAS) scores. For example, IPGC and SSPP students had changes in total GAS score (3.91-4.08, p = .002, and 3.84-3.99, p = .003, respectively), but no change was found for GAP students (3.85-3.91, p = .523). Conclusions and Relevance: More structured interprofessional education with older adults appeared to help prepare occupational therapy students to work on geriatric interprofessional teams in primary care. What This Article Adds: This article expands on growing evidence to support occupational therapy's role in primary care by addressing the need to train future generations to work on interprofessional geriatric primary care teams. P rimary health care is the accessible frontline service for patients and their families over a lifespan (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 1994). In primary care, disease prevention and management are efficiently managed in the appropriate setting, by the appropriate provider, and in a manner consistent with the patient's values. Because of medical advances and chronic disease management, the geriatric population is projected to reach 98 million by 2060 (Colby & Ortman, 2015). A large group of older adults with a multitude of complex chronic diseases is expected to be managed by primary care teams. Given the shortage of primary care providers, a team-based approach is more essential than ever to improve patient satisfaction and health outcomes and to decrease costs (