The Effect of an Intensive Geriatric Continuing Medical Education Program on the Implementation of STEADI-based Fall Risk Screening

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (06/26) Casey, Colleen M.; Lesko, Alexandra C.; On, Helen; et al.

Over a five-year period, researchers evaluated whether exposure to a geriatric continuing medical education program improved fall risk screening among primary care providers caring for 133,068 patients aged 65 years and older in a large health system. Patients were categorized annually based on whether their providers had completed Geriatric Mini-Fellowship (GMF) training, worked in a clinic with at least one GMF-trained provider, or had no direct or indirect exposure to the program. Multivariate analyses showed that GMF-trained providers consistently had a higher predicted probability of conducting fall risk screening than usual-care providers. The screening advantage increased from 5.8% in 2019 to 12% in 2023, and confidence intervals favored GMF providers each year. The findings indicate that intensive geriatrics education can support sustained implementation of fall risk screening in primary care, an essential first step for identifying high-risk patients and enabling assessment of modifiable risk factors and targeted interventions.

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