The elderly are the most vulnerable to adverse events during and after hospitalization. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of a curriculum on patient safety and transitions of care for medical students during an Internal Medicine-Geriatrics Clerkship on students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The curriculum included didactics on patient safety, health literacy, discharge planning and transitions of care, and postdischarge visits to patients. Analysis of pre- and postassessments showed afterwards students were significantly more comfortable assessing a patient's health literacy and confident performing a medication reconciliation, providing education regarding medications, and identifying barriers during transitions. More students were able to identify the most common source of adverse events after discharge (86% vs. 62% before), risk factors for low health literacy (28% vs. 14%), and ways to assess a patient's health literacy (14% vs. 2%). It was feasible to implement a postdischarge visit assignment in an urban tertiary care setting and only required on average of approximately an one and one half hours for students to complete.
Keywords: geriatrics education; patient safety; transitions of care.