A scene of a hospital floor at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center in Boston, MA, with a nurse standing and working on a computer in the background and a blood pressure monitor in the foreground.

Health Care Services and Policies

Marcus Institute research is impacting policies and developing standards that improve health care for older adults.

Research-Proven Policies to Improve Health Care for Older Adults

Older adults are more than twice as likely to require hospitalization as adults in middle age. Moreover, when an older person lands in the hospital, care may not consider the special needs of an older patient such as cognitive challenges or frailty. Unfortunately, the same may be true in outpatient settings. 

The Marcus Institute seeks to effect broad change in policies that impact the care of older adults. We do this by identifying age-related conditions that have an outsized impact on health care utilization and costs and developing interventions that will mitigate the issues.

Improving Health Care for Seniors While Reducing Costs

From responding to the COVID-19 pandemic to ongoing pressing issues impacting health care for older people, Marcus Institute researchers are engaged in pioneering research that improves care while reducing the burden on our health care system. 

  • The recent COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the vital role researchers in the field of aging must play in managing public health challenges. Marcus Institute researchers were called upon to help guide efforts to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a disproportionate and devastating impact on older populations.
  • Palliative care researchers at the Marcus Institute are conducting NIH-funded studies to better understand and identify ways to reduce disparities in the care of people living with dementia in nursing homes.
  • We are investigating the association between conditions like frailty and health care utilization and costs; and developing quality indicators for use in long-term care, post-acute care, and home care.
  • We are making frailty information accessible to clinicians and health care systems to identify people with frailty and deliver tailored care. 

It's vital that we all understand why the way in which we care for older adults affects the cost and quality of health care delivery for everyone.

Explore this section to learn more about the Marcus Institute’s work to improve geriatric care.

Find current research projects

Showing 19 Results

Mentoring Patient-Oriented Research to Prevent Injury in Older Adults

The goal of this Midcareer Investigator Award is to grow the field of young investigators properly trained in aging research, and to improve the health of frail, older adults through Dr. Berry`s research efforts focused on unintentional injury.

 

K24 AG070106

Principal Investigators

Mid-Career Mentoring Award For Patient-Oriented Research in Frailty and Health Outcomes

This project aims to develop a mentoring program in frailty research for early-stage and new investigators; conduct high-quality research to determine heterogeneity of treatment effects by frailty for a broad range of medical and surgical interventions; and enhance PI’s new research skills, mentoring capacity, and leadership.

K24 AG073527

Principal Investigators

Network for Investigation of Delirium: Unifying Scientists (NIDUS)

NIDUS is a collaborative research network dedicated to promoting innovation and fostering advances in delirium research through development of innovative research and measurement resources, training opportunities, pilot funding, and dissemination of information.

DeliriumNetwork.org

Principal Investigator

NIA AD/ADRD Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory (IMPACT)

The NIA AD/ADRD Collaboratory will provide the national infrastructure necessary to catalyze and support embedded pragmatic clinical trials of non-pharmacological interventions for persons with dementia. By convening national experts to provide consultation and guidance to Collaboratory-funded pilot projects and NIA-funded trials, the Collaboratory has the potential to transform care delivery, quality, and outcomes for millions of Americans suffering with AD/ADRD.

ImpactCollaboratory.org

Principal Investigator

Nursing Home Prevention of Injury in Dementia (NH PRIDE)

This research aims to develop and implement an Injury Liaison Service in four nursing home facilities that will promote deprescribing psychoactive and cardiometabolic drugs and encourage osteoporosis treatment.

NIH R01AG062492

Principal Investigator

Prospective Monitoring of Newly Approved Cardiovascular Drugs in Older Adults with Frailty

This research aims to establish a prospective monitoring program in routine healthcare databases for older adults with frailty and identify predictors of benefit from newly marketed drugs for cardiovascular disease.

R01AG062713

Principal Investigator

Risk-Guided Atrial Fibrillation Surveillance in Ischemic Stroke

This research aims to evaluate contemporary practices related to the use of an Implantable Loop Recorder (ILS) following ischemic stroke. Our goal is to develop a post-stroke atrial fibrillation (AF) risk prediction model using the national Veterans Health Administration electronic health records (EHR) and externally validate the model in the Boston Medical Center Stroke Database and develop an EHR-based post-stroke AF risk estimation tool and conduct a single-arm pilot test of the EHR tool to evaluate acceptability, adoption, and validity prior to RCT testing. 
K23HL151903-01A1 

Principal Investigator

Safe Cardiometabolic Drug Prescribing to Prevent Injury in Nursing Home Residents

This research aims to determine the net clinical benefit of cardiometabolic drugs in ADRD and other nursing home residents. Our findings will inform clinical treatment of cardiometabolic disease, prevent injurious falls, and save costs in the nursing home.
NIH R01AG061221

Principal Investigator

Successful Aging After Elective Surgery (SAGES)

This research aims to examine the risk factors, causes, and duration of changes in thinking, functioning, and memory after surgery and hospitalization, and in some cases, delirium in older adults. Explore the role of inflammation, Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, brain plasticity, and complicated delirium.

NIH: P01AG031720 

Principal Investigator

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