An interprofessional team of researchers at UTMB has received a 5-year award notification from the National Institute on Aging for their multi-PI R01 project "Annual wellness visit policy: Impact on disparities in early dementia diagnosis and quality of healthcare for Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and its related dementias."

The project will be the first to use the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) 4Ms framework of an age-friendly health system to inform annual wellness visit policy and develop a practice guideline to improve the timeliness of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) diagnosis and post-diagnosis care. The goal is to decrease health disparities and improve quality of life among Medicare beneficiaries with ADRD and their families through earlier dementia diagnosis and more timely treatment.

The three PIs—Drs. Ming (Huey-Ming) Tzeng, (PI, School of Nursing, Professor), Yong-Fang Kuo (PI, School of Public and Population Health, Professor & Chair of the Statistics & Data Science Department, Health Service Researcher, and Biostatistician), and Mukaila Raji (PI, School of Medicine, Professor & Director of Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine Division, Geriatric Pharmacologist, and Dementia Specialist)—and two Co-Is—Drs. Peter Cram (Co-I, School of Medicine, Professor & Chair, Internal Medicine) and Monique Pappadis (Co-I, School of Public and Population Health, Associate Professor of Population Health & Health Disparities)—are Fellows of the Sealy Center on Aging.

Read a press release about this study.