An advanced practice nurse-centered discharge planning and home care intervention for at-risk hospitalized elders reduced readmissions, lengthened the time between discharge and readmission, and decreased the costs of providing health care. Thus, the intervention demonstrated great potential in promoting positive outcomes for hospitalized elders at high risk for rehospitalization while reducing costs.

Hospitals that utilize an organizational approach addressing the multifaceted nature of the GNPE are more likely to improve the hospital experience of older adults.

Total nursing staffing and RN staffing levels were predictors of nursing home quality. Further research is needed on the effectiveness of state minimum staffing standards.

Geriatric interdisciplinary team training has long been a goal in health education with little progress. In 1997, the John A. Hartford Foundation funded eight programs nationally to create Geriatric Interdisciplinary Team Training (GITT) programs. Faculty trained 1,341 health professions students. The results of the evaluation, including presentation of new measures developed to assess interdisciplinary knowledge, are presented, and the implications of the program as a model of interdisciplinary education are discussed. Evaluation data from 537 student trainees are presented. At posttest, GITT trainees demonstrated improvement on all measures of attitudinal change, no change on the geriatric care planning measure, and a change in some of the questions on the test of team dynamics that varied by discipline. Changes were greatest for all the attitudinal measures with the self-reported Team Skills Scale indicating the most significant change--a change that is significant across medicine, nursing, and social work trainees.

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