About Us

The University of Iowa is one of 42 organizations nationwide to receive funding from the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP). The GWEP is sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The overall purpose of the GWEP is to 1) develop a health care workforce that maximizes patient and family engagement and 2) improve health outcomes for older adults by integrating geriatrics with primary care.

Our project, the Iowa Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (Iowa-GWEP), is coordinated by the Iowa Geriatric Education Center. It embraces and implements the GWEP mission through five objectives: 1) Build partnerships to educate and train a workforce: academia, primary care sites/systems, and community-based organizations; 2) Train current and future providers to assess and address the primary care needs of older adults; 3) Transform clinical training environments to become Age-Friendly Health Systems; 4) Deliver community-based programs that provide patients, families, caregivers, and direct care workers with the knowledge and skills to improve health outcomes for older adults; and 5) Provide Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) education and training for those who provide care for older adults with dementia.

The Iowa-GWEP focuses on the 4Ms of Age-Friendly Health Systems – What Matters, Mentation, Mobility, and Medication – as well as on the practices of Dementia Friendly Communities. Our collaboration with our partners in primary care and community-based organizations advances our goal of developing a responsive interprofessional rural workforce that engages older people as partners and improves their health outcomes.

Project Director Ryan Carnahan, PharmD, MS, BCPP is a pharmacoepidemiologist, psychiatric pharmacist, professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Epidemiology of the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

To learn more about the GWEP, visit the HRSA website.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Department of Health and Human Services provided financial support for this website through Award Number 6 U1QHP53049‐01‐01 (Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program). The award provided 100% of total costs and totaled $4,998,887. The contents are those of the author. They may not reflect the policies of the Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Government.