Unnecessarily high hospital readmissions rates have recently garnered headlines and received increased scrutiny from policymakers. Reducing avoidable readmissions has long been an important focus of our grantmaking. Now that our grantees have developed proven, evidence-based models like the Transitional Care Model , the Care Transitions Intervention, and Project BOOST, we…
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In addition to the good news of Health Affairs focusing on long-term care coupled with the additional bad news on hospital readmissions from skilled nursing facilities, as I reported a few weeks ago, this special issue of Health Affairs had many other features of interest. A non-exhaustive list includes: Susan…
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On the Martin Luther King Holiday, I think it is only right to think about ageism, which, along with racism and sexism, is a fundamental barrier to achieving the more just and equitable society that we desire. Coincidentally, over the weekend, I had an opportunity to hear from Bill Thomas…
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Most people agree that loan forgiveness for medical students who agree to undergo geriatrics training would be a good thing. The American Geriatrics Society has a nice summary of the topic here. However, the idea has yet to be practically implemented… with the exception of South Carolina. Click here to…
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Not only did the new SCAN Foundation sponsored series, "Caring for the Aging Patient: From Evidence to Action" start late last month in The Journal of the American Medical Association, but on Tuesday January 5, 2010, the SCAN-sponsored special issue of Health Affairs, "Advancing Long-Term Services and Supports" was…
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At the end of 2009, our friends at the SCAN Foundation saw the start of their new series in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the "Care of the Aging Patient: From Evidence to Action." This debut reflects several milestones--the emergence of new funders dedicated to aging…
Read full postFor many of us here in the United States, the span from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day is a time spent enjoying the company of family and friends. As a year-end tribute to our first year of blogging, we’d like to highlight the following blog posts that feature the…
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We just recently found out that in our series of blogs highlighting the awards our excellent grantees won in November 2009, we missed one. At their annual meeting, the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine (APM) presented Jurgen Unutzer with the APM Research Award. The award, created to recognize exceptional research and…
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In the beginning of November, I spoke about nurse-led change at the American Academy of Nursing’s annual meeting. If we are going to reform the health care system, I said, nurses must be at the forefront of change. Nurses have the most contact with patients; they are the most highly…
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This Monday the 21st is the shortest day of the year and the beginning of winter. It will be very cold and very dark. On this occasion I want to call attention to something just as cold, dark, and frightening in the December issue of Academic Medicine. It is an…
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