Protecting seriously ill populations during pragmatic clinical trials
March 22, 2023
Topics
Watch – Words Matter: Shortcomings and challenges of nomenclature in Alzheimer’s disease
IMPACT Ethics and Regulation Core Leader, Jason Karlawish, MD, hosted a virtual conversation on the shortcomings and challenges of nomenclature in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and learn about the opportunities to address these challenges. He was joined by IMPACT Stakeholder Advisory Committee member, Angela Taylor, BA of the Lewy Body Dementia Association.
Karlawish and Taylor discussed questions and consideration in the field’s nomenclature including:: What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s disease and dementia? Should we still use the word dementia? Does it make sense to say that a person with MCI can progress to Alzheimer’s disease? In the term ADRD, does the second “D” stand for “disease,” “disorder,” or “dementia”?
The entire discussion can be viewed on You Tube.
Two IMPACT members tapped for National Center advisory board
IMPACT’s Gary Epstein-Lubow, MD of the Stakeholder Engagement Team, and Implementation Core Communications Consultant, John Beilenson, AB, MA, are among the 16 members of a new advisory board established by The National Center to Reframe Aging — the nation’s leading organization dedicated to reshaping the conversation about older people. Members are from diverse professional backgrounds such as communications and public relations, research, policy, and law.
IMPACT physicians contribute to Health Affairs article addressing costs of dementia care
Payment For Comprehensive Dementia Care: Five Key Recommendations
February 7, 2023 Continue reading
Methods for Designing Cluster Randomized Trials to Detect Treatment Effect Heterogeneity
February 2023 – In Grand Rounds 34, IMPACT Design and Statistics Executive Committee Member, Dr. Li, sheds light on several methods for designing cluster randomized trials (CRTs) to detect the variability of treatment effects for individuals within a population, also known as heterogeneity of treatment effect (HTE).
Learning Objectives
- Understand the sample size requirements for testing treatment effect heterogeneity in cluster randomized trials.
- Be aware of tools for designing cluster randomized trials.
- A call for involving statisticians at the outset to design cluster randomized trials.
Vincent Mor to be honored for exceptional career achievement with McKnights Award
IMPACT multiple principal investigator, Vincent Mor, PhD, is to be honored with an McKnight’s Industry Ally Award on March 7, 2023. The first McKnight’s Pinnacle Awards program “recognizes industry veterans who are setting the standards, driving change, providing guidance and inspiring us all,” in senior care, skilled nursing, or the home care sector.
Mor is Professor of Health Services, Policy & Practice; and Florence Pirce Grant University Professor, Brown University School of Public Health at Brown University. His decades-long career in understanding senior care is credited with driving change and setting standards in the field.
The Pinnacle Awards ceremony will be held at the The Ivy Room in Chicago, IL on March 7. Details and tickets are available online.
IMPACT’s Mor is among authors of JAMA article on hospital discharge rates and nursing home quality for those with dementia
IMPACT multiple principal investigator Vincent Mor, PhD recently co-authored an article in Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open sharing results of a cross-sectional analysis of Medicare beneficiaries.
The JAMA Network Open article shares a cross-sectional analysis of more than 2 million Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized between 2017 and 2019. The analysis revealed that persons with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia were more likely to be discharged to lower-quality Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) after accounting for discharging hospital, residential neighborhood, and other characteristics (e.g., post-acute care specialization) of all SNFs available at discharge. Results were consistent in analyses stratified by race and ethnicity, payer source, and primary diagnosis.
The article was also covered in McKnight’s to emphasize how the study results show that regulatory and payment changes are “badly needed” to improve the care process and support direct care staff working with dementia patients.
The McKnight article emphasized how the results should cause policymakers to consider incentivizing nursing homes to take patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). The study data showed that these patients often end up in low-quality facilities after a hospital stay. Mor and his colleagues suggested that improving nursing home quality for patients with ADRD will require focused funding efforts to provide quality care.
