The rising number of geriatric patients with complex, chronic, and often multiple health conditions presents numerous policy challenges. RAND has conducted the most comprehensive examination of the quality of medical care provided to the vulnerable elderly and coordinates interdisciplinary research centers to develop and study innovative clinical and health services interventions to improve health care outcomes for geriatric patients.
Periodical
Dementia costs Americans hundreds of billions of dollars per year, and the annual cost could top half a trillion by 2040 due to the “graying” of the U.S. population. This infographic shows the soaring economic costs and caseload of dementia.
News Release
The rising cost of Medicare can be cut through strategies such as increasing premiums and raising the eligibility age, but those moves could drive many elderly Americans from the program, leaving them with limited access to health services.
Commentary
It is time for the government in partnership with industry to return to the drawing board to craft a plan that will provide protection for the more than 9 million people who will need care for dementia by 2040, writes Michael D. Hurd.
Commentary
At the rate that the U.S. population is aging, the total cost of dementia could reach half a trillion dollars a year by 2040. Those who care for impaired relatives and friends are acutely aware of the effects of dementia, and unfortunately they are all too familiar with its costs, writes Kathleen J. Mullen.
News Release
The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer.
Journal Article
The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer. The greatest cost is associated with providing institutional and home-based long-term care rather than medical services.
Blog
If a medical treatment worked only a fraction of the time and resulted in bad outcomes more often than not, practitioners would not make this treatment the default approach. Yet that is exactly what has happened when it comes to CPR for individuals 85 years and older who suffer cardiac arrest in a community setting.
Journal Article
In a study on 568 adults between 25 and 80 years of age, hypotheses were tested on the specific relationships between individual differences in working memory, episodic memory, and semantic memory, and 6 main components of decision-making competence.
Journal Article
This survey measures family members' experiences of nursing home care, and the results contribute to the understanding of quality of care in nursing homes.
Blog
It seems obvious to ask nursing home residents about their own health. But until a quiet revolution that took place in 2010, it didn't work that way.
Journal Article
The Minimum Data Set (MDS) is a standardized assessment that is completed on all residents admitted to Medicare certified nursing homes in the US.
Blog
Greater use of geriatricians in the hospital setting could reduce health care costs while maintaining quality of care, but there are fewer than four certified geriatricians in the United States per 10,000 individuals 75 years of age or older.
Journal Article
This article reports on research mentorship in the context of interdisciplinary geriatric research based on experiences with the RAND/Hartford Program for Building Interdisciplinary Geriatric Research Centers.
Past Event
RAND Summer Institute is an annual event sponsored by the RAND Labor and Population Center for the Study of Aging; RSI's two conferences on aging are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and convene in Santa Monica each July.
Journal Article
Few patients 75 years of age and older participate in clinical trials, thus whether adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer (CC) benefits this group is unknown.
Journal Article
Care provided by physicians was substantially supplemented by nurse care managers, as measured by Assessing Care of Vulnerable Elders quality indicators.
Journal Article
Geriatricians were more efficient than other physicians in managing hospitalized elderly adults with medical DRGs frequently managed by geriatricians. This efficiency did not compromise patient outcomes.
Project
An evaluation of 16 integrated care pilot programs in England revealed that greater integration of health and social care led to improved care processes and more satisfied staff, but some aspects of patient experience were less positive, and the intended reduction in emergency admissions was not seen.
Journal Article
The aim of this study was to develop a measure of social care outcome, an equivalent to the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in health, which could be used in a range of circumstances.
Journal Article
This study assessing trends in late-life disability in the emerging economy of Taiwan showed that limitations in seeing, hearing, and instrumental activities of daily living declined.
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