New Resources Celebrate AGS Advancing Geriatrics in Surgical & Medical Specialties

Since 1994, the American Geriatrics Society’s (AGS’s) Geriatrics-for-Specialists Initiative (GSI) has brought together organizations and leaders in the surgical and related medical specialties to increase awareness of and knowledge in caring for older adults. Supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation, the GSI has provided funding for researchers and educators, and has continued to foster the development of best-practice guidelines focused on the care we all need as we age, particularly as more and more of us look toward the prospect of long-term health needs.

One example of this work is the Dennis W. Jahnigen Career Development Scholars Program, supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies. The Jahnigen Award had provided funding for junior scholars conducting research on the geriatrics aspects of their specialties and, since 2011, has provided funding for professional development plans complementing research projects funded by the National Institute on Aging and designed to encourage transitions to geriatrics research among early-career specialists. The AGS also has supported similar efforts focused on internal medicine specialties with the Association of Specialty Professors at the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine.

The GSI and its related initiatives make good on an AGS promise to ensure all health care professionals are better equipped to care for us as we age. Now, decades of such progress are more accessible and widely available through two new resources: An open-access virtual issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) focused on geriatrics in surgical and medical specialties, and a related bundle of tools from GeriatricsCareOnline.org.

The JAGS virtual journal issue offers a collection of articles addressing agenda-setting, workforce development, and professional education, all aimed at improving older adult well-being across different specialties. Importantly for long-term care professionals, it also tackles concrete efforts to advance care, not only for specific conditions like delirium and frailty, but also within specific settings. For example, the suite of resources available from JAGS charts the historical development of aging and medical subspecialties with an eye toward improving career development for all health professionals focused on geriatrics and long-term-care expertise. As colleagues invested in this work have observed, such a transition is important to grasp in the here-and-now because, “[w]ith the aging of the US population and the emerging realization by all specialties that care of older adults is central to their spheres of practice, these topics are becoming mainstream in internal medicine specialties...[As a result, e]fforts are underway not only to increase safety at the hospital, but also to change the focus of care away from the hospital to post-acute care and primary care practices.”

The JAGS virtual issue also looks critically at the spaces and places where older adults receive care, and where the future of long-term care may well be taking shape. Among the virtual issue’s offerings are a set of guidelines developed jointly in 2014 by the AGS, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) to provide a standardized set of principles for colleagues working with older adults where health care often begins: the emergency department. That early partnership has even helped spur the creation of the Geriatrics Emergency Department Collaborative—a new effort by the AGS, ACEP, ENA, SAEM and 9 leading health systems to now study and share best practices in emergency medicine for older people at all stages of care.

The GeriatricsCareOnline.org special topics bundle, “AGS Advancing Geriatrics in Surgical & Medical Specialties,” offers a companion to the JAGS virtual issue with an even broader array of guidelines and resources, including exclusive tools and guidelines for the pre- and perioperative care of older people. 

To access the JAGS virtual issue, visit https://bit.ly/GSI-JAGS (case-sensitive). You can also visit GeriatricsCareOnline.org for the special-topic bundle of related tools.

Reference

1. Hurria A, High KP, Mody L, et al. Aging, the medical subspecialties, and career development: where we were, where we are going. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2017;65(4):680-687.