A before and after study of medical students' and house staff members' knowledge of ACOVE quality of pharmacologic care standards on an acute care for elders unit.

Abstract Background: The Assessing Care of Vulnerable Elders (ACOVE) comprehensive set of quality assessment tools for ill older persons is a standard designed to measure overall care delivered to vulnerable elders (ie, those aged ≥65 years) at the level of a health care system or plan. Objective: The goal of this research was to quantify the pretest and posttest results of medical students and house staff participating in a pharmacotherapist-led educational intervention that focused on the ACOVE quality of pharmacologic care standards. Methods: This was a before and after study assessing the knowledge ofACOVE standards following exposure to an educational intervention led by a pharmacotherapist. It was conducted at the 29-bed Acute Care for Elders (ACE) unit of Maimonides Medical Center, a 705-bed, independent teaching hospital located in Brooklyn, New York. Participants included all medical students and house staff completing a rotation on the ACE unit from August 2004 through May 2005 who completed both the pre-and posttests. A pharmacotherapist provided a 1-hour active learning session reviewing the evidence supporting the quality indicators and reviewed case-based questions with the medical students and house staff. Educational interventions also occurred daily through pharmacotherapeutic consultations and during work rounds. Medical students and house staff were administered the same 15-question, patient-specific, case-based, multiple-choice pre-and posttest to assess knowledge of the standards before and after receiving the intervention. Results: A total of 54 medical students and house staff (median age, 28.58 years; 40 men, 14 women) completed the study. Significantly higher median scores were achieved on the multiple-choice test after the intervention than before (median scores, 14/15 [93.3%] vs 12/15 [80.0%], respectively; P = 0.001). Conclusion: A pharmacotherapist-led educational intervention improved the scores of medical students and house staff on a test evaluating knowledge of evidence-based recommendations for pharmacotherapy in the elderly.