It’s sometimes good to reflect that with all of the effort the Hartford Foundation puts into improving geriatric care across the nation, we’re not alone in meeting the challenge. Other philanthropic organizations have taken on similar goals. Among them, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation stands out for its ongoing efforts to promote, strengthen, and expand geriatrics education for physicians (and recently for nurses).

Through its Aging and Quality of Life Program, established in 1996, Reynolds has continuously worked toward its mission of “improving the quality of life of America’s growing elderly population through better training of physicians in geriatrics.” Since 2001 the Reynolds Foundation has invested nearly $80 million in grants to support a major initiative calling on the nation’s academic health centers to undertake comprehensive programs that strengthen geriatrics training for medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. Grants of $2 million each went to four cohorts of academic health centers, with 10 centers in each cohort.

Now, based on the four cohorts’ accomplishments, Reynolds has created yet another opportunity, called Next Steps in Physicians’ Training in Geriatrics, which competitively awards funding to academic health centers that received their first or second cohort training grants from the Reynolds Foundation and are in good standing. To build on their good work and significant contributions, the program will award grants in two areas: (1) geriatrics training for non-primary care medical and surgical specialists and (2) improving the ability of physicians to work with other health disciplines in teams to provide better care for older persons. Recently, the Reynolds Foundation announced the list of the 10 sites, who will each receive $1 million, distributed over four years:

  • Medical College of Wisconsin
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Hawaii
  • University of Missouri-Columbia
  • University of Nebraska
  • University of New Mexico
  • University of North Carolina
  • University of Rochester
  • University of South Carolina/Palmetto Health
  • Virginia Commonwealth University

Geriatrics training for non-geriatricians and team training have been long-time priorities of the Hartford Foundation as well. Our efforts in the specialties of internal medicine began in the 1990s with a series of retreats bringing together leaders from geriatrics with their specialist colleagues in a process that led to some powerful “conversion” experiences where cardiologists, oncologists, rheumatologists, nephrologists, etc. began to see the intersection of their work with aging and geriatrics. These retreats bore much fruit, including our current grant to the Association of Specialty Professors, directed by Kevin High, MD, which helps support the T. Franklin Williams Scholars Program as well as integration of geriatrics into training for the internal medicine subspecialties.

Around the same time, Denis Jahnigen, MD, started the Foundation on its course in the surgically related disciplines, observing that not only were older adults the primary patients of internal medicine but also increasingly the patient population served by ERs, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and rehabilitation specialists. The Geriatrics for Surgeons Initiative, housed at the American Geriatrics Society, now shares responsibility for the new GEMSSTAR partnership with ASP to support scholar-champions (who will always be Jahnigen Scholars to me), supports curriculum development in residencies, and drives a profession-wide effort to see geriatrics competency adopted as a required element of physician training.

Of course, a high functioning team of health professionals is critical for geriatric care, and the Foundation’s interest in interdisciplinary team training (now rechristened Interprofessional Team Training) is long-standing. While the Foundation’s GITT program was somewhat ahead of its time, other organizations, such as the Josiah Macy Foundation and the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI) have also focused on teamwork and team training in health care. We are glad that list now includes Reynolds.

We at the JAHF would like to extend our appreciation to the good folks at Reynolds not only for the wonderful new opportunities they have created through Next Steps in Physicians’ Training in Geriatrics, but also for the great work they have done in the past to help sustain and expand professional training in geriatrics. The new models and materials created by the Next Steps sites will help the rest of the nation’s health professions schools and training programs follow their groundbreaking paths.