PI-GWEP works with educational partners across Hawaiʻi to strengthen how future healthcare professionals learn about aging, geriatrics, dementia care, and Age-Friendly Health Systems. Through curriculum development, faculty collaboration, simulation, and interprofessional learning experiences, PI-GWEP helps prepare learners to provide coordinated, person-centered care for older adults across healthcare and community settings.
PI-GWEP collaborates with faculty across the University of Hawai’i system and community colleges to integrate geriatrics and age-friendly care principles into health professions education. These efforts include curriculum mapping, educational resource development, and the incorporation of geriatrics content into programs at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), the University of Hawaiʻi School of Nursing, the Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health, Kapiʻolani Community College (KCC), and Leeward Community College (LCC). Educational content addresses topics such as the 5Ms Framework, dementia care, caregiver support, elder justice, care coordination, cultural responsiveness, and interprofessional practice. By embedding these concepts into existing curricula, PI-GWEP helps ensure that learners across multiple disciplines are prepared to meet the needs of Hawaii's growing older adult population.
Aging with Grace is PI-GWEP's Age-Friendly Health Systems curriculum centered on the 5Ms Framework: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility, and Multi-Complexity. Originally developed in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi School of Nursing, the curriculum has been integrated into undergraduate and graduate nursing education and continues to expand across disciplines. PI-GWEP is working with educational partners to adapt and incorporate age-friendly care principles into additional programs, including social work education and interprofessional learning experiences. The curriculum incorporates online learning modules, telehealth experiences, simulation activities, case-based learning, and opportunities for interprofessional collaboration. Through Aging with Grace, learners explore practical approaches to implementing the 5Ms Framework while developing the knowledge and skills needed to provide age-friendly, person-centered care for older adults.
PI-GWEP supports learning experiences that bring together students, trainees, faculty, and professionals from multiple disciplines to explore the complex healthcare, social, ethical, and community-based factors that influence the health and well-being of older adults. Through initiatives such as GeriLab, Hawaiʻi Interprofessional Education (HIPE) activities, the Law and Ethics Interprofessional Seminar, and the KCC Collaborative Care Symposium, learners engage with colleagues from different professions while examining real-world issues related to aging, caregiving, dementia, decision-making, care transitions, and person-centered care. These experiences encourage learners to better understand the unique roles and perspectives of different professions while strengthening the communication, teamwork, and collaborative practice skills needed to support older adults and their families.