Improving healthcare transitions of surgical care through an interprofessional education elective

The Age-Friendly Health Systems movement focuses on the 4Ms of geriatrics: medications, mentation, mobility, and what matters most to patients. Ineffective care transitions can lead to suboptimal outcomes with respect to these 4Ms.1 Improving transitions of care (TOC) is more important than ever, given the increasing number of patients with complex medical problems, especially among older adults. TOC around surgery add another layer of complexity. Surgery, and thus postsurgical TOC, is a common occurrence with 30% of national yearly hospital stays linked to a surgical procedure.2 Care coordination rests upon communication between patients, providers, and healthcare teams, which is of utmost importance in older adults.2, 3 While the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement targets older adults, younger patients, especially the medically complex, can also benefit from this approach.Recognizing this need for improved patient TOC, one approach has been to increase the awareness of this important topic and its impact on patient safety and health outcomes through the education of healthcare professions students. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, for example, has named effective TOC as a core competency and tracks milestones centered around this competency.4 Ways in which this topic is taught in healthcare education is not uniform, and formal curricula are often absent. Most literature on TOC curricula emphasizes the impact of experiential learning and interprofessional collaboration when educating learners on this topic.5-7 Curricula dedicated to TOC have improved students' confidence in TOC skills, increased TOC knowledge, and emphasized the importance of TOC especially for chronically ill and geriatric patients.5-7 An interprofessional TOC curriculum focusing on the needs of medically complex surgical patients, both as they prepare for surgery and transition to the hospital as well as their transition from the hospital after discharge, has not been described to our knowledge and makes the Transitions of Care: Surgical Care Navigator Program at our institution unique. Building similar curricula raises awareness of patient vulnerability around TOC, ultimately aligning with high-value healthcare goals. This course aims to improve student competencies in interprofessional collaborative practice during patient transitions of surgical care, with the ultimate goal of improving the health outcomes of older adults.