CHANGE Project: Validation of a Hospital Evaluation Model for Older Adults in a Multicenter Multidimensional Care Network

The aging process is heterogeneous, and as it drives older adults to present multiple concomitant needs and atypical disease manifestations, it introduces substantial complexity into clinical evaluations. Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is an effective strategy to meet this challenge, but its real-world use is limited by the long administration time and the lack of sufficiently trained healthcare professionals. The 10-Minute Geriatric Assessment (10-TaGA) is a quick, multidimensional tool requiring minimal resources. Despite its promise to improve inpatient care—shifting the focus from single-disease management to holistic geriatric needs—there are no published studies validating its use in hospitalization settings.

The CHANGE Project (Creating a Hospital Assessment Network in Geriatrics) will develop a Compact Geriatric Assessment model for hospitals (TaGA-Hosp), adapting and validating the 10-TaGA for older inpatients. Its performance in predicting adverse outcomes and detecting frailty will be evaluated in this cohort. Additionally, a multicenter collaborative network for the assessment of hospitalized older adults will be established.

The TaGA-Hosp will be an easy-to-use, rapidly deployable tool that supports the objective and comprehensive assessment of hospitalized older adults, especially in care settings strained by high demand and limited resources—a frequent reality in acute-care health services. In this way, it will aid healthcare professionals in their clinical decision-making and facilitate prognostic discussions with patients and their families.