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Working Toward a Future of Quality Care for Older Adults

Who We Are

I. Background

The tenets of interdisciplinary are now well recognized as a foundation for advancing the science of geriatric care and creating new knowledge for the betterment of older Americans. The rising number of older patients with complex, chronic and often multiple conditions presents challenges in care delivery and social organization that are best tackled by interdisciplinary teams of health professionals who can integrate concepts, methods, and practices across disciplines

Interdisciplinary research:

• Brings multiple disciplinary theories, skills, data, and ideas to bear on a common problem or theme.
• Reflects true collaboration across two or more relevant disciplines within or across institutions.
• Builds new partnerships that expand research foci and methods beyond traditional boundaries.

Clearly, the continued development of high quality geriatric health care services requires integrating skills across a variety of disciplines, building new interdisciplinary partnerships, and, in general, expanding research opportunities beyond the traditional boundaries of individual disciplines.

II. Purpose

The efforts of geriatric research centers to develop and study promising, innovative clinical and health services interventions for older adults will be enhanced by three complementary elements:

1. Interdisciplinary geriatric research that reflects true collaboration across multiple relevant geriatric disciplines within an institution, involves trans-institutional arrangements or non-university organizations, with investigators holding a variety of professional degrees actively engaged in the design, implementation and analysis of clinical care, health services, translational or outcomes research for older adults.

   
   Core disciplines are:

   • Medicine
   • Nursing
   • Social Work

   Related disciplines include, among others:

Anthropology Biostatistics Business Dentistry Economics Education Engineering Law

Nutrition Pharmacy Psychology Public Health  Public Policy Rehabilitation Religious Studies Sociology

2. Interdisciplinary geriatric health care interventions, defined broadly as testable strategies for improving the health, quality of life and/or quality of care, health outcomes and cost effectiveness of care for older adults that integrate conceptual, operational, and analytic components from multiple disciplines. Specific targets of an intervention may be the individual older adult, caregivers or families, health providers singly or in teams, or health system processes or products.
3. Interdisciplinary geriatric research education, training, and mentoring that encompasses interdisciplinary training and mentoring activities focused on the career development of junior investigators (i.e., junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, or graduate students) through targeted career development programs and/or awards, pilot grants to conduct interdisciplinary research, and directed mentoring by interdisciplinary investigators.

The overall purpose of this initiative is to build or expand interdisciplinary geriatric research centers that will be competitive in attracting subsequent extramural peer-reviewed funding for the design and study of highly integrated clinical and health services interventions.