The John A. Hartford Foundation Geropsychiatric Nursing Collaborative
Nurses represent the largest group of health professionals caring for older adults, but most nurses lack knowledge and skills regarding mental health issues in older adults. To address this, the John A. Hartford Foundation funded the Geropsychiatric Nursing Collaborative (GPNC) in 2008 with a grant of $1 million.“Geropsychiatric nursing is about aging and it’s about mental health, and those are two relatively stigmatized areas,” says Lois K. Evans, PhD, RN, van Ameringen Professor in Nursing Excellence, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, one of the leaders of the GPNC. There are few nurses with strong training in both those areas. “We realized that if we were going to get more nurses prepared to care for the large, growing cohort of older adults with mental health issues, we would need to infuse geropsychiatric content and clinical learning into nursing educational programs at all levels,” says Dr. Evans.
Nurses armed with the appropriate knowledge and skills can have a profound effect on the lives of older adults with mental health conditions.