Research Activities

The impact of chronic disease is greatest among older adults, yet they are often the most understudied and their voice is often not heard in local and regional research initiatives.

Faculty within the Geriatric Medicine Program collaborate with the Department of Family and Community Medicine research division and local agencies including the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University (OH) and the Council on Aging (COA) to address the healthcare needs of the aging population, through research.

A Combined Research & Geriatrics Scholarly Group meets quarterly to present and review scholarly projects. And faculty are also working to develop a new Geriatrics Research Network to study health and disease among the older populations.

Current Research Projects:

Use of community based services for older adults by primary care office
As part of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Cincinnati’s Next Steps in Physicians Training in Geriatrics awarded to the UC Office of Geriatric Medicine, we are recruiting up to 8 practices from the Cincinnati Area Research Group Network (CARinG) and Cincinnati’s Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH) to evaluate, educate and improve the knowledge of primary care providers about community-based long term care services for older adults in Hamilton County. (Douglas Smucker, MD)

Pace Evaluation Project
The Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program enrolls frail seniors age 55 and older that meet nursing home level of care. PACE participants do not look as impaired on measures of functional status (ADLs) as PASSPORT enrollees, another Medicaid waiver program that helps older Ohioans get the long-term services and supports they need to stay in their homes.

PACE program staff have suggested that their participants are more medically complex and thus require the integrated care provided by PACE. We are sampling medical records from PACE and PASSPORT in both Cincinnati and Cleveland to better understand whether there are differences in medical complexity. (Gregg Warshaw, MD and Libbie Bragg, PhD)

Consultant to Ohio’s Long Term Care Direct Care Workforce Project
Ohio’s Long Term Direct Service Workforce Project was established to support the goals of the Ohio’s Money Follows the Person Initiative by coordinating the efforts of multiple state agencies: Aging, Jobs and Family Services, Education, Health, Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

As part of the project, university faculty with expertise in curriculum development and health and human services research collaborate with stakeholders to develop curriculum for a latticed certification program for LTC direct service workers across disciplines and service sectors, and to develop and implement a research agenda to provide information state agencies, policy makers and providers may use to address current and future LTC direct service needs. (Libbie Bragg, PhD)