Crosswalking the AACN Essentials Competencies With the 4Ms Competencies for Age-Friendly Nursing Home Care

Background: The Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms framework (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility) is an evidence-based approach to improving care for older adults in long-term care settings; however, its integration into nursing curricula is limited. This project establishes a relationship between the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials and the 4Ms framework and introduces a set of tailored competencies. Problem: The AACN Essentials lack alignment with age-friendly health systems practices for long-term care. Approach: Eight 4Ms-based competencies were developed and crosswalked with Level 1 and 2 competencies from the AACN Essentials . Faculty adapted these into tailored sets for 4 learner groups. Outcomes: The crosswalk showed strong overlap, especially in collaboration and person-centered care, and produced 4 flexible competency sets for undergraduate and graduate education. Conclusions: Aligning nursing competencies with the 4Ms addresses a key workforce gap and provides practical competency mapping to strengthen age-friendly curricula and training.