At the Foundation, we often feel that information we have about improving the care of older adults is simply not getting the attention it deserves. People see a neighbor hospitalized repeatedly for the same chronic condition (say heart failure, the number one cause of hospital admission for Medicare beneficiaries), and they say, "Well, what do you expect, he's old and sick."
The notion that health care for older people could be enormously better than it currently is--compassionate, coordinated, expert, illness-preventing, and less expensive--flies in the face of what people think they know about "America having the best health care in the world." And since much of the 
improvement in health care for older people would come from high-touch rather than high-tech interventions, and in many cases, doing less of what does not help, it flies in the face of the US consumer culture idea that "more is better." Indeed, these days if a sick older person doesn't end up in a hospital, there would probably be some public suspicion that that they were getting substandard care. Only if you have been to the hospital recently you would know that this isn't a place you want to be unless you absolutely have to.
So this is why I was astonished to see in my own local free "shopper" newspaper, the Park Slope Courier, on March 6, 2009, a special "Focus on Health" feature about geriatric medicine. It even had a "blurb" on the front page--a little advertisement to look for the story farther on in the newspaper. The story, "The More to Take, the Greater Risk You Make," was a very nice review of the problem of overmedication among older adults, if a so-so take off on the Beatles song lyric (I'm pretty sure that the paper is part of Rupert Murdoch's chain, but clearly the real headline writers are all working at the New York Post.) In addition, two other stories, entitled "Missed Independence" and "Signs of Adverse Drug Reactions," offered ideas on how to help older people stay at home and live independently for as long as possible and a very specific discussion of drugs and symptoms of adverse reactions.
These were impressive pieces, and I don't know if they were purchased from a wire service or home grown. But things like this make me think that the message may actually be getting out.