Creating age-friendly nursing homes: The time is now

Age-Friendly Healthcare: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis

AIMS

Aging populations require adapting healthcare systems for older adult's specific needs. Numerous initiatives to improve older-patient care have emerged, but the field lacks a unified framework. The current study aims to provide a systematic concept analysis of 'age-friendly healthcare', examining its characteristics, components and structure.

DESIGN

Rodger's evolutionary concept analysis.

DATA SOURCES

Searches were conducted in ProQuest, CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus databases between November 2022 and October 2023, utilising the PRISMA 2020 reporting checklist.

METHODS

A literature search using specific terms relevant to age-friendly healthcare retrieved 1407 articles. After screening for duplicates and relevance, 140 articles were examined for eligibility based on inclusion criteria for age-friendly care, language and full-text availability. Following full-text screening, 65 articles were included for data extraction by multiple researchers to synthesise theoretical, methodological and design elements.

RESULTS

Our findings highlight key attributes of age-friendly healthcare: Respect for older adults' autonomy and needs; leadership and organisational knowledge and support; Proactive policies and processes of care; holistic care environments; and communication and follow-up with awareness of challenges and barriers as well as prioritisation of continuity-of-care.

CONCLUSION

The concept of age-friendly healthcare is still developing, with much research focused on development and implementation rather than evaluation of real-world patient and health-system outcomes. Our analysis of the concept may help unify the field and clarify future research directions through identification of areas requiring further study and enable development of improved practices and policies for implementing age-friendly healthcare in a variety of settings.

NO PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

This concept analysis did not include any patient or public involvement.

REPORTING METHOD

This study utilised the PRISMA reporting checklist.

Early clinical and quality impacts of the Age-Friendly Health System in a Veterans Affairs skilled nursing facility

BACKGROUND

Skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) are an ideal setting to implement the Age-Friendly Health System (AFHS) approach, an initiative by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) centered on the 4Ms: what matters, mobility, mentation, and medication. AFHS implementation has not been well studied in SNFs.

METHODS

A 112-bed VA SNF implemented a facility-wide AFHS initiative including the following: (1) participating in a national IHI Age-Friendly Action Community; (2) establishing an AFHS workgroup centered on the 4Ms; (3) identifying meaningful clinical tools and frameworks for capturing each M; and (4) developing sustainment methods. Clinical (life-sustaining treatment, falls, disruptive behaviors, and medication deprescribing) and quality outcomes (rehospitalization, emergency department utilization, and discharge to the community) in addition to patient satisfaction were compared pre- and post-AFHS implementation (bed days of care [BDOC] 17413) to post-implementation (BDOC 20880).

RESULTS

Clinical outcomes demonstrated improvements in the 4Ms, including: (1) what matters: 14% increase in life-sustaining treatment documentation (82%-96%; p < 0.01); (2) mobility: reduction in fall rate by 34% (8.15 falls/1000 BDOC to 5.41; p < 0.01); (3) mentation: decrease in disruptive behavior reporting system (DBRS) by 62% (5.11 DBRS/1000 BDOC to 1.96; p = 0.04); (4) medications: 53% increase in average potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) deprescribing (0.38-0.80 interventions/patient; p < 0.01). Quality outcomes improved including rehospitalization (25.6%-17.9%) and emergency department utilization (5.3%-2.8%) within 30 days of admission. Patient satisfaction scores improved from a mean of 77.2 (n = 31, scale 1-100) to 81.3 (n = 42).

CONCLUSIONS

Implementation of the AFHS initiative in a SNF was associated with improved clinical and quality outcomes and patient satisfaction. We describe here a sustainable, interprofessional approach to implementing the AFHS in a SNF.

How to Influence Behavioral Intention Toward Age-Friendly Home Modifications in Urban Older People Aged 70

Aging in place with a suitable living environment is essential for the health and well-being of older adults. However, the willingness of older people to modify their housing to meet their needs is not strong. Using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method, the study first explores the weights of factors, such as perceived behavioral control, policies, and market conditions that influence older adults' behavioral intention. Then, a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to dissect the psychological factors which account for the largest proportion. Using data from 560 people aged 70 or older from Beijing, results suggest that effectiveness perception, cost perception, and subjective norms can influence older people's behavioral intention directly or indirectly through emotional attitudes. Risk perception can moderate the level of behavioral intention triggered by cost perceptions. This study provides new evidence for the impact of factors and interaction mechanism on older adults' behavioral intentions toward age-friendly home modifications.