Greetings From Azusa GWEP

As the Project Director of the Azusa Pacific University Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (APU GWEP), I am delighted to welcome you to our first quarterly newsletter. This publication aims to keep you informed about our innovative geriatric care initiatives, provide practical resources for healthcare professionals, caregivers, and families, and highlight the latest age-friendly and dementia-friendly practices. Whether you are a clinician, student, family member, or community partner, we invite you, through this newsletter, to stay abreast and explore how we are transforming care for older adults in medically underserved areas of Southern California.

Recent Highlights

We are so thrilled with all the progress our team has made. For example, we just completed a successful 12-week interprofessional clinical training (aka “TTOUR”) course with 10 new geriatric scholars gaining experience in underserved primary care settings in Southern California. Our next 12-week interprofessional clinical training begins in January—watch for opportunities to join! In addition, you won’t want to miss out on our education offerings as we will be hosting monthly (and soon to be bi-weekly) case-based interprofessional grand rounds style education sessions online–free to all! With these free seminars we hope to spread cutting edge geriatric knowledge in our community and to promote the development of competent diverse teams of geriatric practitioners everywhere that we can make a difference. And finally I want to mention that our partnership with CareConnect MD is a cornerstone of our rapid expansion that is also strengthening our local interprofessional teams to deliver high-quality, tech-infused and cutting edge geriatric care.

Looking Ahead to Year 2 and Beyond

At APU we are working diligently to provide training for our adjunct faculty and clinical preceptors. With the rapid expansion of AI, the geriatric landscape is becoming high-tech and we will be providing our trainees with new skills and specific training in AI infused remote patient monitoring (RPM) and digital therapeutics. And lastly, we are at the beginning stages of developing a California certified Geriatric Apprentice Program that will provide direct care workers in our communities with on the job training and long term career opportunities so that the impact of this program will be realized for years to come. We will continue sharing our findings through presentations and publications.

We hope that you will visit our new state-of-the-art website where we will be giving real time updates on impact stories, provide you with geriatric resources, and link you with engagement opportunities. Thank you for joining us on this transformative journey!

– Dr. David V. Picella, PhD, FNP, CNS, GS-C, CPG