Resource Center

The Interprofessional Curriculum for Care of Older Adults (iCCOA), is a project funded by HRSA to develop and evaluate an interdisciplinary geriatric curriculum for medical, nursing, social work, counseling psychology, pharmacy, dentistry, and law students, fellows and residents. Other learners include professional health care workers, community organizers, peer mentors and frontline workers.

The goals of this project include educating a healthcare workforce that can meet the needs of the rural older adults by integrating geriatrics with primary care, behavioral health care and community-based care, maximizing patient and family engagement, and transforming the rural healthcare system. As a part of this project, a Curriculum for the Care of Older Adults (iCCOA) has been developed by faculty at the University of Louisville Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Social Work and Law.

The modules expose the learner to an interprofessional approach to providing health care, which incorporates behavioral health and community based care. Addressing social determinants of health is a primary approach to achieving health equity. The content is intended to expose the learner to many areas of care, not just medical.

• Three geriatric, online, case-based didactic modules focus on the care of an older adult with complicated, co-morbid, chronic conditions and a lack of community support.  The modules use problem-based learning to introduce core interprofessional geriatric care concepts and put learners on the same level from diverse background and experiences.
• A 4th module will address interprofessional teams and practice, specifically care planning.
• A 5th module will focus on family system level training in Motivational Interviewing (MI) where learners will be trained to intervene using systemic MI that looks at the system surrounding the patient as the change unit.
• Learners complete all five modules prior to other learning activities. Independent. 5 hours.