Teaching Geriatrics Through Home Visits

As the older adult population continues to grow, health care professionals need to be equipped with the expertise to care for multimorbid and seriously ill patients in all care settings, including at home. Geriatrics home visits provide an essential learning experience for learners of all levels and disciplines, allowing for rich interprofessional learning and hands-on practice with geriatric assessments. In this chapter, we provide best practice strategies for how to effectively teach learners in the home using the Geriatric 5Ms Framework and with emphasis on teaching the Social Determinants of Health. We recognize that home visits may be an unfamiliar teaching environment for many learners and educators, so we provide concrete and practical tips on teaching methods, direct observation, and evaluation that will help create a successful experience for a wide range of learners.