Reynolds Foundation Awards $2 Million to IU for Geriatrics Education
INDIANAPOLIS -- A $2 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation
to the Indiana University School of Medicine will increase the statewide
geriatrics education of physicians, residents and medical students over
the next four years.
Glenda R. Westmoreland, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of clinical
medicine at IU, is the principal investigator of the grant which was awarded
to establish the Geriatrics Education Network of Indiana (GENI). Its goal
is to prepare the physician workforce to care for the state’s aging
population by strengthening the geriatrics training of 840 medical students,
450 residents and 223 practicing physicians throughout Indiana.
“Through GENI, we plan to create a standard of excellence for geriatrics
education across the state that ensures that all older Hoosiers benefit
from quality care,” says Dr. Westmoreland, who also is director of
geriatrics education in the IU Geriatrics Program and a scientist at the
IU Center for Aging Research.
By the year 2030, more than one million people in Indiana will be over
age 65. Physicians at the School of Medicine believe that aging gracefully
correlates with good health and the quality of health care people receive
in primary care settings. Through this program, they intend to provide
good education in geriatric medicine not only to future physicians but
also to those currently in practice.
This September, Dr. Westmoreland will begin planning the training for
15 faculty members at IU to be the program’s expert faculty. Some
of them are geriatricians in internal medicine and family medicine; all
are clinician educators who are recognized as exceptional teachers.
In the second year, this group will train 24 university-based and 24
community-based physicians, primarily located near the school’s nine
education centers in Fort Wayne, Muncie, Terre Haute, South Bend, Gary,
West Lafayette, Bloomington, Evansville and Indianapolis. These 24 physicians
will then train another 80 physicians, half with the school and half in
the community during the third year. This will continue to ripple throughout
the physician community the fourth year when an additional 80 physicians
are trained.
During the four years and beyond, the physicians will engage students
and residents in the process, with the goal of more than doubling the
students’ learning hours in geriatric medicine and increasing the
residents’ learning hours in geriatrics by nearly 30 percent.
To demonstrate their progress, physicians and their office staff will
identify, implement and evaluate specific projects that will improve medical
care to the population of elderly patients seen in their practices. Residents
and medical students will be involved in these projects from their inception.
According to Dr. Westmoreland, the projects will be very doable and easy
to replicate in other physicians’ practices. “Something as simple
as incorporating a low exam table to help patients who have mobility limitations
might be one project,” says Dr. Westmoreland. Another example of
a project might be “to write down legible, large print notes as the
physicians and staff talk for the patient to take home with him or her.
These will help the patient and family to remember the plan discussed
during the office visit,” she adds.
The new program will benefit from the existing infrastructure at the
School of Medicine that includes the IU Geriatrics Program and Center
for Aging Research, the Senior Care program at Wishard Health Services,
the Clinical Skills Education Center which is available for training and
testing, a robust continuing medical education program, and extramural
funding for curricular innovations.
The program also has attracted participation from the Center for Geriatric
Medicine at Methodist Hospital and the Geriatrics and Extended Care program
at Roudebush VA Medical Center, both in Indianapolis. In addition, it
will work closely with the recently funded Relationship Centered Care
Program funded by a $2 million grant from the Fetzer Foundation.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization
founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Reynolds
was the founder and principal owner of the Donrey Media Group, which he
created in 1940 with the purchase of the Okmulgee Daily (Oklahoma) Times
and the Southwest (Arkansas) Times Record.
During Reynolds lifetime, he owned and operated over 70 businesses, the
majority of which were in the communications/media field. Their holdings
were primarily in the field of daily newspapers, outdoor advertising and
cable television companies.
Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is among the 50 largest private foundations in the United States
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Media Contact: Pamela Perry
(317) 274-5452
pperry@iupui.edu
.
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