Assessing the Isfahan Hospitals based on the World Health Organization's Age-Friendly Hospital Model: A Mixed Method Study

Objectives: The rapid growth of the elderly population requires the design of age-friendly healthcare systems in order to respond to the complex needs of the elderly. We aimed to assessing the hospitals in Isfahan based on the age-friendly hospital criteria and to identify challenges and solutions in order to realize these criteria according to experts' view. Methods & Materials: A mixed-methods study was conducted in two phases in 2019-2020. First, using the checklist Ahmadi et al study, the university hospitals in Isfahan were assessed based on the age-friendly hospital criteria. The checklists were completed by observation, documents review and experts' opinions. Data analysis was done by SPSS 26 software and using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient. Qualitative data were collected through semi structured interviews. We used contractual content analysis method to data analysis. Results: Most of the hospitals aquired good scores in phsical environment, toielts and signposts dimensions and lowest scores were in the admission of billing, optimal timing for visits, accessibility and inpatient services dimensions. On average, the age-frinedly score of all hospitals were calculated at 51.7 out of 100. There was no significant relationship between the characteristics of hospitals (type of ownership, type of activity, specialization, number of beds, bed occupancy rate, degree of accreditation, and manager’s field of study) and their scores based on age friendly criteria. We identified 9 themes and 27 sub-themes related to challenges and solutions of the implementation age friendly hospital program. Conclusion: While it is necessary to change the way of providing health services and move towards aging-friendly hospitals, according to our findings, the hospitals have many shortcomings. Promoting geriatric medicine and nursing, designing a special admission system for elderly, considering an administrator for the elderly in different departments of the hospital, reducing the treatment costs for the elderly, promoting consultation, prevention, treatment and Follow-up of the elderly, empowering employees, upgrading physical infrastructures, etc. can help to solve the existing challenges.