November 2024 Issue | Volume 18, Number 11

A publication of the Univ. of Utah Center on Aging
phone: 801.213.4156 | email: aging@utah.edu
Newsletter Archives

This newsletter issue, Volume 18, Number 11 will be the last with my signature. I look forward to passing the baton and this responsibility to Dr. Markland on December 1 when she assumes the Executive Director of the Center on Aging (CoA) role. The CoA has made significant contributions to the University of Utah and its faculty, trainees and students since the first newsletter edition was issued in January 2007 https://aging.utah.edu/membership/newsletters/2007/jan.php. Permit me to reflect on some of these accomplishments with you.

My appointment to become the CoA Executive Director was a major factor that influenced my decision to make the transition from Michigan to Utah in 2005. I saw the opportunity and potential to lead the CoA in a University-wide direction given its new, free-standing organizational structure. On October 1, 2005 (my first day here), I submitted an institutional K07 award to the National Institute on Aging to help fund this vision. In the application I outlined the following four deliverables for the CoA’s proposed expanded mission. I am pleased to report the significant progress that has been made for each of these outcomes during the past 19 years. 

1.  Increase the number of active faculty members

When I arrived in 2005, there were four other CoA members each of whom were faculty with the College of Nursing’s Gerontology Program.  As a University-wide center, today its membership  has grown to 215 faculty members spanning all five Health Sciences schools and colleges and another 13 main campus colleges.

2.  Grow the U of U’s aging-related research infrastructure and grant portfolio

    •  The annual update of aging-related grants across the University for 2022 reported a total of  $23.8 million annual total costs – a more than five-fold increase from 2005.

    •  Following my initial K07 award, Dr. Lee Ellington successfully transitioned a CoA Innovations    award into another institutional K07 NIA award.  In addition, a total of 36 NIH “K-type” or VA Career Development awards have been received by CoA trainees and early career stage faculty – 19 of these were funded by NIA.  Of note, three of these are the prestigious, NIA Beeson K76 awards. 

    •  The CoA has awarded 80 pilot grants and two Innovations in Aging awards. To date, these    awards have supported 41 successful extramural grant applications that together have accounted for $44 million in total direct costs.

    •  Sponsored 16 annual research retreats.

    •  Supports an Aging Research Participant Registry.

3.  Expand gerontology into the curricula of its pre professional and professional research training programs

    •  Two five-year award cycles of funding from the D.W. Reynolds Foundation to support geriatric      education.

    •  Two five-year award cycles of funding from HRSA to support the Geriatric Workforce      Enhancement Program and the Utah Geriatric Education Consortium.

    •  A designated training site for the VA Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center’s      Advanced Fellowship in Geriatrics and the VA Advance Fellows.

    •  A five-year NHLBI T32 research training program in Cardiovasomobility.

4.  Expand the complement of clinical services to better provide the continuum of care

    •  Developed the Geriatric Primary Care Clinic program and its embedded Aging Brain Care clinical program.

    •  Developed a fourth pillar for the CoA focused on participation in promoting and now, being      “Committed to Care Excellence” in Age-Friendly Care.

    •  Established the delirium prevention program for U Health inpatients – the Hospital Elder Life      Program.

    •  Became the administrative home for the Utah Governor’s Commission on Aging.

I am not retiring just yet and will remain an active CoA faculty member.  I look forward to witnessing the next phase of the CoA’s development in pursuing its mission “to unite aging-related research, education, and clinical programs at the University of Utah with the goal of synergizing the growth and progress of interdisciplinary aging research to help people lead longer and more fulfilling lives and support the development of multidisciplinary aging clinical and training programs.”

Best,

Mark

The Annual Scientific Meeting with GSA was held in Seattle this year.  The University of Utah and the Center on Aging was represented well.  The presentations are located here.

Pictured Above: College of Nursing Faculty Drs. Eaton and Supiano with Dr. Katarina Felsted one of the new GSA 2024 Fellows and GSA President Dr. Judith Howe.

More GSA pictures below:

New Publication Alert - CoProducing a Faculty Feedback Program for School of Medicine Educators....Center on Aging member Dr. Katherine Anderson and other University of Utah faculty had this article published in the Medical Science Educator.  

Many institutions have developed holistic faculty evaluation programs to address limitations of using student feedback as a sole means of measuring teaching effectiveness. Much of the current literature on faculty development and evaluation explores retrospective data about faculty reactions and/or outcomes of teaching evaluation programs, but few have described this level of faculty input gathered prospectively. As a first step in designing a faculty evaluation program, we partnered with faculty, using the conceptual framework of co-production to ensure we have considered their needs, and anticipate this will promote stakeholder buy-in, and lead to more uptake in faculty who want to participate in a faculty evaluation program.

Dr. Anna Parks is an Assistant Professor and Director of Thrombosis in the Division of Hematology & Hematologic Malignancies and a Center on Aging faculty member at the University of Utah. Dr. Parks grew up in Salt Lake City and is thrilled to be back. She graduated from Yale University. She received her medical degree, trained in Internal Medicine, served as a Chief Resident, and completed Hematology fellowship and a two-year NIH-funded T32 Aging Research fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

She joined University of Utah faculty in August 2021. Her research focus on older adults with hematologic disease stems directly from caring for these patients and their families, who face complex decisions and lack patient-centered evidence. To address this gap, her research uses observational datasets to examine aging-centered outcomes and develops patient-reported outcome measures unique to older adults, with the goal of developing future individualized decision-making interventions. She is a past recipient of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) R03 Grant for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists' Transition to Aging Research. This year, she and her multidisciplinary collaborators were thrilled to receive a Center on Aging Pilot Award for their proposal to examine hematologic predictive biomarkers for intracranial hemorrhage with anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease.

With mentorship from CoA faculty Drs. Mark Supiano, Dan Witt, Rand Rupper, and many others, Dr. Parks recently received the NIA K76 Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging for her project “Advancing patient-centered decision-making in older adults with venous thromboembolism (VTE).” Current VTE treatment paradigms neglect multimorbid, frail older adults and do not prioritize quality of life and independence. This project will build foundational data to support development of a future intervention to improve VTE treatment decisions. Aim 1 will engage stakeholders to identify core components of individualized treatment decisions in older adults with VTE. Aim 2 will leverage two large cohorts of older adults with VTE from the Utah Population Database and national VA data to examine how aging-related predictors (e.g., frailty), influence VTE outcomes and how VTE treatment affects aging-centered outcomes (e.g., physical function). Aim 3 will develop a clinical risk model incorporating geriatric syndromes to predict anticoagulation-related bleeding in older adults with VTE.

What is Age-Friendly Care? Check out this article in Pulse: Elevating Age-Friendly Health Care. Click here to read and view the article/video. 

Publication Announcement 

Publication of a book on the Age-Friendly Ecosystems was edited by CoA members Drs. Linda Edelman and Valerie Greer. This book contains chapters in Age Friendly ecosystems, communities, neighborhoods, Universities and health systems - including one by Dr. Tim Farrell and many other CoA Members! This compact book examines age friendliness within the framework of age-friendly ecosystems, and from a place-based approach, considering anchor institutions of neighborhoods, campuses and health environments as sites uniquely positioned to catalyze age equity and inclusivity.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-68361-9?sap-outbound-id=374C04F4CB0BB9EA10DA4888F238C792D8BDD5EF

Age friendliness has grown from an idea into a social movement that recognizes the diversity of older adults, and integrates research, policy, programming and design practices. Compounding pressures of rapid aging, systemic ageism, and a growing disparity of resources compel us to rethink how we achieve equity in aging through the design of places and practices.

Content for this book draws from a 2022 symposium, Age Friendly Communities as Platforms for Equity, Health & Wellness. Contributors build upon the content shared through the symposium in order to examine how neighborhoods, campuses and health environments are uniquely poised to support equity and to extend reach to historically marginalized populations of older adults. Ideas and experiences from national experts in aging, as well as “real world” experiences and narratives shared by older adults, students, community stakeholders and faculty researchers, are presented through a place-based approach. 

Internal Medicine Grand Rounds

"The University of Utah Age Friendly Learning Healthcare System - Cultivating a Healthy Ecosystem"

Jorie Butler, PhD

Associate Professor

Department of Internal Medicine; Division of Geriatrics

Department of Biomedical Informatics

December 12, 2024

12-1pm

HELIX GS 150 Chokecherry

Streaming Link: https://medicine.utah.edu/internal-medicine/grand-rounds/gr-livestream

Event ID: 347041

American Geriatrics Society 

May 8-10, 2025 

Chicago , IL

Call for Abstracts

The abstract submission deadline is December 2, 2024 at 11:59 PM Eastern time.

Please join the University of Utah, Division of Geriatrics and the Veteran Affairs Salt Lake City Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center for Geriatric Grand Rounds and Translational Grand Rounds on Tuesday mornings.

Nov 7 Quarterly Summit

UCOA held its final quarterly summit for 2024 on November 7 with about sixty attendees. After welcome and announcements by UCOA Chair Darlene Curley, Dr. Timothy Farrell was welcomed as the new appointee for higher education replacing the role Dr. Supiano had for almost twenty years. The theme for this meeting was focused on caregiving and acknowledged November as Family Caregivers Month with declarations from Utah Governor Cox and President Biden. Community programs and research opportunities in the packet were highlighted and ED Ence gave an update and led Master Plan on Aging conversations including the announcement that Governor Cox will be holding symposium in January spotlighting older adult issues in his second term. Ence and Curley will meet with Governor’s staff for input and details on November 21. Ence and Troy Wilson discussed the national Uniform Health-Care Decisions Act of 2023 and Senator McKell’s bill to adopt its provisions in Utah at the next legislative session. The summit then heard a presentation from Trualta Care Network about their virtual resource package being considered by several stakeholders and how we can make this accessible for the entire state. The summit wrapped up with a presentation and discussion about the Division of Aging and Adult Services state needs assessment survey led by Nels Holmgren and Traci Lee.

Community Partner Engagements.

Working with WINGS  on court guardianship rule changes and what legislation will be proposed in the next session. The Utah Development Opportunity Network met to review the new round of infrastructure funding for digital equity programs in the state that will be available for application in early 2025. We expect to hear in December about the outstanding challenge grant UCOA and partners applied for. Other partner meetings included Utah Association of Area Agencies on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias workgroups. A collective of community arts organizations interested in teaching older adults met to discuss creating an arts and aging festival in June of  2025. Ence was interviewed by KSL TV for a spot on caregiving issues in Utah. It was aired at Noon on KSL November 21.

Community Presentations and MPA Promotions

ED Ence presented of fraud prevention to a group of 50 residents of the Sage Independent Living community at Daybreak. Ence also met with the Tooele County Advisory Council and members of the health department on Utah’s master plan. Ence is assisting a group of citizen activists prepare for media messages and legislative awareness of Adult Protective Services needs. Ence met with Shawn Teigen of the Utah Foundation to talk about the commission work, current projects, and how their organization can help spotlight and support UCOA and the master plan.

Future Opportunity Developments

Ence met with leaders from the Texas coalition putting together an MPA for their state. Quarterly meeting with Department of Health and Human Services leadership focused on updating our Advance Care Planning documents and discussed progress on the e-registry conversations with other states. Ence continues advisory role with Parkinson’s group in establishing provider state plan. Ence and DAAS’ Kate  Nederostek met with developers of Get Set and previewed the product with the body of the Utah Caregiver Roundtable. Ence will also serve on the DAAS Steering Committee related to the developing more resources in support of the findings of the state needs assessment. Ence met with program leaders at the Center for Health Care Strategies, which is committed to keeping MPA cohort members in contact and constantly sharing MPA insights and learnings.

As a mostly virtual Center, we depend on the accuracy and timeliness of our Web presence. Center members are urged to review and update their membership directory information. Please take the next few moments to review your information on the Center’s Web site. Send any updates or requests for changes and more importantly to be linked to the appropriate topic interest group(s) complete this survey and return to Heather at heather.podolan@hsc.utah.edu or aging.utah.edu.

For past issues, please visit our NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES PAGE.

The bristlecone pine tree (Pinus longaeva) - the earth’s oldest inhabitant with a life span of almost 5,000 years - is found only in Utah and five other western states. Its extraordinary longevity and ability to adapt and survive in extremely harsh environmental conditions above 10,000 feet embodies the investigative spirit and mission of the Utah Center on Aging.