CSOA Research Team Gives Poster Presentation: "Get Fit for Surgery: An Interdisciplinary Geriatric Surgery Wellness Program"

^A research team at the UCSF Center for Surgery in Older Adults (CSOA)  including faculty, research residents, staff and students, gave a poster presentation about the UCSF Surgery Wellness Program entitled, Get Fit for Surgery: An Interdisciplinary Geriatric Surgery Wellness Program, at the 5th Annual Quality and Safety Symposium hosted by the UCSF Department of Medicine on May 28, 2015.

The presentation reported on early results on this new clinical intervention, which launched in February 2015 at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay 

The goal of the Quality and Safety Innovation Challenge (QSIC) is to provide an opportunity for UCSF faculty trainees and staff to work collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams to design and implement innovative solutions that improve patient care.

The Surgery Wellness Program poster illustrates the implementation of a quality improvement initiative that includes a novel clinical care pathway designed to prepare older adults for major elective surgery. The program incorporates multidisciplinary care by a geriatrician, physical therapist, occupational therapist and dietitian, each contributing to the personalized plan of care tailored to the respective needs of each  patient.

Each personalized plan of care includes:

• An exercise routine
• Dietary recommendations
• Strategies to reduce postoperative delirium
• Strategies to improve home safety issues - for example, how to prevent falls after surgery
• Weekly follow-up support including phone calls by health coaches both before and after surgery

Health coaching is provided by UCSF medical and nurse practitioner students, and UCSF clinical staff.

About the Program

The UCSF Surgery Wellness Program is part of the UCSF Center for Surgery in Older Adults (CSOA) led by Emily Finlayson, M.D., M.S., Associate Professor of Surgery and Health Policy. The Center seeks to discover and implement patient-centered best practices in geriatric surgery that will help older patients achieve their treatment goals and maintain independence and vitality. CSOA's overarching goal is to discover best practices in geriatric surgery through patient-centered outcomes assessment, comparative effectiveness analyses, and interventional trials. In addition, the program identifies and explores barriers to delivery of optimal care with the aim to improve implementation of interdisciplinary patient-centered surgical care for older adults.