Winter 2003

The University of Colorado Denver

Volume 6, Number 2

The Hartford/Jahnigen COE sponsored a Geriatrics Research Forum on the UCD campus on January 29, 2004. The Research Forum drew more than 100 faculty, students, and members of the local community to discuss research in the field of geriatrics. Guest speaker William Hazzard, MD, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington and Chief of Gerontology at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, shared his expertise on building a successful academic career in an interdisciplinary research environment.

Sarajane Brittis, PhD, and James O'Sullivan, MPH, Program Officers with the John A. Hartford Foundation, visited UCD on December 12, 2003 to conduct the annual site visit evaluation of the Hartford/Jahnigen Center of Excellence (COE) program. They were accompanied by visiting consultant Seth Landefeld, MD, Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics Division Chief at the University of California San Francisco.

Over 100 faculty, students, and
community menbers attended the
2004 Hartford/Jahnigen Center
of Excellence Research Forum
on January 29, 2004

Current and former COE stipend award recipients Cari Levy, MD, Wendolyn Gozansky, MD, MPH, Evelyn Hutt, MD, and Eric Coleman, MD, MPH, presented overviews of their activities and accomplishments under the COE program. Current geriatrics fellows Heidi Wald, MD, and Rebecca Brown, MD, also discussed their plans for future activities in aging research.

The 2004 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Annual Scientific Meeting will be held May 17-21, 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Several UCD faculty members and fellows will be presenting at this year's meeting, including: Eric Coleman, MD, MPH; Sunny Linnebur, PharmD; Robert Schwartz, MD; John Scott, MD; Heidi Wald, MD; and Jeffrey Wallace, MD, MPH. Further information regarding the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting and a schedule of events can be found on the AGS web site: http://www.americangeriatrics.org/news/meeting/.

Several UCD faculty members
and fellows will be presenting
at the 2004 American
Geriatrics Society Annual
Scientific Meeting.

We continue to accept applications on a rolling basis for Hartford/Jahnigen COE Assistant Professor and Fellowship Stipend awards, as well as grant awards. For further information, please contact Danielle Holthaus at 303-315-1023 or Danielle.Holthaus@uchsc.edu.

About the John A. Hartford Foundation...

Founded in 1929, the John A. Hartford Foundation is a committed champion of training, research, and service system innovations that promote the health and independence of America's older adults.

Through its grantmaking, the Foundation seeks to strengthen the nation's capacity to provide effective, affordable care to this rapidly increasing older population by educating "aging-prepared" health professionals (physicians, nurses, social workers), and developing innovations that improve and better integrate health and supportive services

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The project to develop an outcome-based continuous quality improvement (OBCQI) system for the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) began in 1996 under the direction of Dr. Peter Shaughnessy at the Center for Health Services Research.

PACE includes as its core services the provision of adult day health care and interdisciplinary team care planning through which access to and allocation of all health and long-term care services are arranged. Services such as physician, therapeutic, ancillary, and social support are provided on site at an adult day health center whenever possible. Hospital, nursing home, home care, and other specialized services typically are provided extramurally. Financing is accomplished through capitated Medicare and Medicaid payments to the provider.

Dr. Peter Shaughnessy leads the
development of an outcome-
based continous quality
improvement system for PACE.

PACE operated under demonstration status until the program received permanent provider status under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. As PACE sites proliferate and the program evolves as a result of receiving permanent provider status, it is essential to establish a set of standardized quality monitoring measures to assure that minimum standards of care are met across PACE sites, that sites are working to enhance the quality of care provided to all PACE participants, and that researchers and policy makers have accurate and adequate information on the PACE participant population at individual sites and across

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