Center for Aging Studies at the Erickson School Launches National Study of Physician Care in Assisted Living

November 12 - 2007

CONTACT: Kavan Peterson
Office: 410-455-1896
Email: kavan@umbc.edu

BALTIMORE – The Erickson School’s Center for Aging Studies (CAS) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is launching a multi-state, 30-month study investigating the role of physicians in providing care to residents of assisted living (AL) facilities.

Funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Aging (NIA), it is the first federally-funded study to systematically examine how physicians and staff of AL facilities interact regarding the healthcare of the nearly 1 million residents of AL nationwide. Beginning in January 2008, UMBC researchers and collaborators from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will interview physicians and AL healthcare staff caring for 360 randomly selected residents of nearly 100 AL facilities across six diverse states in the West, Midwest/South, and East regions.

The study, “Physician Care in Assisted Living,” is one of five ongoing applied research projects at CAS, totaling over $6 million in federal grants. The centers interdisciplinary research team includes UMBC faculty and students from the Erickson School, Anthropology, Sociology, Health and Aging Services Research, and Gerontology.

To date, physicians have been challenged to respond to the diverse health care needs of the nation’s more than 68,000 AL settings, which vary from very small owner-operated houses to large 300 unit corporate run campuses, said Dr. John Schumacher, associate director of the Center for Aging Studies and principal investigator in the study. 

“Without first hand information of their local AL facilities, many physicians simply equate assisted living residence with institutionalized nursing home care, when in fact AL settings are community-based and can have an entirely different range of supportive healthcare, wellness, and other services,” Schumacher said.   

“Physicians have not been educated or encouraged to modify their practice patterns to engage the unique needs, circumstances, and opportunities of caring for AL residents,” Schumacher said.  

In fact, physicians are financially discouraged from visiting and interacting with AL facilities due to substantially lower Medicare reimbursement rates for AL patient visits and thus “lost” income for the physicians’ medical practices. And unlike the heavily federally-regulated nursing home industry, AL regulations are enacted exclusively at the state level, are continuously updated and vary quite significantly by state, which adds significantly to the complexity of physician interaction with AL residents.

As the population and healthcare needs of the large numbers of residents in AL increases, so do key questions into the optimal structure, process, and quality of medical care they’re provided, said Erickson School Dean Kevin Eckert, co-investigator on the study.

According to Eckert, the lack of systematic information regarding physician care and interaction with AL settings continues to represent a critical missed opportunity in caring for and promoting quality of life for our rapidly growing population of older adults.

 “Obtaining information on physician care in AL will be one step to improving the quality of medical care, and quality of life, for millions of our older adults and their caregivers,” Eckert said.

About the Erickson School

The Erickson School at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County was created with a $5 million commitment from John Erickson, CEO and founder Erickson Retirement Communities, and matching state funds. The School integrates aging, management, and policy in each of its programs, with a strong emphasis on preparing leaders for the 21st century. The School offers credit and non-credit educational programs at the undergraduate, masters, and executive levels.

About the Center for Aging Studies

The Center for Aging Studies is the hub for faculty and student aging services research at UMBC. A multidisciplinary team of researchers representing Anthropology, Sociology, Health and Aging Services Research, and Gerontology are at the Center's core. With over $10 million in federal grants in the past five years, the Center conducts intensive research to address the pressing practical and policy issues of our nation’s rapidly growing aging population.

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