A GERONTOLOGICAL CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAM: THE RESIDENT ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT AS A TEACHING TOOL FOR NURSING HOME PROFESSIONALS

We describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of multidisciplinary courses in nursing home care for health care professionals. We examined the most important training needs-understanding the older client, understanding the geriatric care services, knowing the techniques of case management, and understanding long-term case management-and recognized that the key to most of them is a skilled assessment knowledge in the care of the elderly. Therefore, we focused two courses on the teaching of the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI). We verified that the RAI provided students with good assessment skills and solid expertise in the decisional process, which are the prerequisites for quality improvement in elderly care.