Last week I attended the first annual meeting of the Long-Term Quality Alliance and listened to Gregg Pawlson (a geriatrician and executive with NCQA) talk about quality measurement. Right now, quality measurement does too little to drive practice towards quality care because it is based only on things that are…
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On Tuesday I discussed a recent upbeat article in the New Old Age blog about a nursing home’s improved approach to the all too widespread problem of medicating the elderly. I also raised questions about why it has taken this long for nursing homes to start addressing this issue when…
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Sometimes I worry that we are not making progress in our goal of improving the health of older Americans. Sometimes, the process of incremental change with its two steps forward, one step back seems more like going nowhere. As I wrote in a recent post, the Foundation has been working…
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A recent article by Robert Kane published in the January 19, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Finding the Right Level of Posthospital Care,” is a must-read for anyone interested in discharge planning issues. Bob packs a lot of information into this article--a literature review…
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Congratulations to Randy L. Buckner, PhD, and Marcus E. Raichle, MD, for receiving the MetLife Foundation’s Awards for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease at this year’s 25th anniversary awards ceremony. Their pioneering research in brain imaging is leading to a better understanding of this devastating disease, and the $250,000 grants…
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As an alumnus from the first cohort of the Hartford-funded Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) gerontological nursing predoctoral Scholars and Claire M. Fagin postdoctoral Fellows, it is with much pride and humility that I reflect back on the BAGNC program over the last 10 years. I am proud to…
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Happy President’s Day--a day in which we all should take a few minutes to appreciate the contributions of our nation’s leaders. Here at the Hartford Foundation, we also routinely take stock of the accomplishments of our grantees--national leaders in the fields of nursing, social work, and medicine--and celebrate their efforts…
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In some ways, I consider myself lucky. I know this is a strange comment from someone diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I say this, though, because the first steps on my journey with end-stage cancer were undertaken with the help of a team of health care professionals who excelled…
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Well, not my picture, and not on the cover of the Rolling Stone. But it is on the cover of Pharmacy Today, and it is a picture of long-time Foundation grantee June Simmons, MSW, the CEO of Partners in Care Foundation. June earned this acknowledgement with her 15-year commitment to…
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Because of what the Foundation does and because real geriatric care expertise is so hard to find, I occasionally get questions about elder care. In dealing with my own family, I've tried to recognize my limits and recommend more competent help and resources. Recently, one of my neighbors (I live…
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