Falls prevention education: Interprofessional training to enhance collaborative practice

The gap between the complex health care needs of older adults and the availability of geriatrics-trained health care professionals is widening. Interprofessional education offers an opportunity to engage multiple professions in interactive learning and clinically relevant problem solving to achieve high-quality patient-centered care. This article describes a project that engaged an interprofessional teaching team to support interprofessional practice teams to reduce falls in older adults via implementation of evidence-based practice guidelines. Ninety-five participants from 25 teams were trained on multiple strategies to decrease the risk of falls in older adults. The intervention facilitated increases in knowledge, confidence in skill performance, and team commitment to change practice patterns to support the health and safety of older adults. Findings suggest that community-based practices can successfully support the training of interprofessional teams and that training may lead to improved care processes and outcomes for older adults.