The Great Plains-Mountain GWEP Consortium brings you “Building Resilience: Maintaining Quality Care in Nursing Homes During COVID and Beyond”. This is a live 4 session series on Wednesdays, March 29^th – June 28^th, 2023 from 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm (MST) offered over Zoom.

Presenters include regional and national experts in geriatric care. Receive feedback on your QAPI process from quality improvement experts.

Topics include:

• Promoting Well Being
• Individual Resiliency
• Team Resiliency
• Community Resiliency

Our GWEP team, in collaboration with Comagine Health, developed a training program related to Telehealth in Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS). Consisting of a 3-Part ECHO series, toolkit, and an online training course, our goal is to educate LTSS providers, patients/residents, and families to prevent COVID exposure and promote the readiness to respond to COVID-19 through telehealth utilization.  This program will provide access to telehealth technologies by training LTSS staff, providers, and patients, families, and caregivers.

Our Telehealth in LTSS online course is innovative, evidenced-based, and includes best practices for using telehealth will roll-out late spring/early summer on the Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center’s (NRTRC) Training and Education website for professional development.

These interprofessional modules for PALTC providers and staff are centered around opioid use, including topics such as:

• Reasons for prescribing opioids to treat acute and chronic pain
• Pharmacology of opioid use in older adults with multiple chronic conditions including dementia
• Appropriate prescribing of opioids in nursing home residents
• Opioid misuse in nursing home residents including assessment and treatment
• Non-opioid pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic pain management regimens

Click "Read More" below to access the links to these modules.

The Age-Friendly Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) ECHO Model^TM (formerly the Learning Community Series) builds on the prior UGEC Learning Community, connecting community providers in collaborative learning with specialists through live video conferencing via Zoom.  The ECHO model includes case-based learning and mentorship to help interprofessional teams gain the expertise required to provide needed care and/or services. If you are interested in attending, please contact ugecgwep@utah.edu.

Click "Read More" below to view the recordings of past Age-Friendly LTSS ECHO sessions.

UGEC faculty and students frequently present topics relevant for LTSS providers and staff as well as older adults and family caregivers in the community for conferences and University classes. When possible, we share these with our UGEC partners and communities. Please use these for your own knowledge attainment and share with others individually or in groups.

Click "Read More" below to view the presentations.

The UGEC Goals of Care Conversations (GoCC) Training course is designed to help the long-term services and supports (LTSS) and ambulatory care workforces conduct high-quality goals of care conversations about life-sustaining treatments and services. The UGEC GoCC training materials were adapted from and made available for public use through the VA National Center for Ethics in Health Care. Original materials are available for download from the VA National Center for Ethics in Health Care GoCC Training. 

As the older adult population grows, there is an increased need for long-term services and supports (LTSS) and ambulatory care professionals to possess the knowledge and skills necessary to meet their unique care needs. This Age-Friendly Care Training consists of three courses: 1) Geriatric Core Competencies; 2) Communication, Care Transitions and End-of-Life Conversations; and 3) Fundamentals of QAPI. 

Each topic area contains objectives, background information, learning activities, and resources. Links to sources are embedded throughout the course, including in the Background, Key Terms, and Additional Resources subsections. Following each topic is a "Test Your Knowledge" 10-question, non-graded quiz, which is designed as a learning activity. This online training course is designed to be self-paced.

The University of Utah Health is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation. To receive 5 contact hours, complete the entire online course and post-training survey.

Click "Read More" below to learn more about these online training courses and how to access them.