Key Sessions from the AGS 2007 Annual Meeting Featured in Webcasts

Since the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987—better known as “OBRA ‘87” because it was part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987—took effect 20 years ago, there has been progress toward its goal of ensuring high-quality care for nursing home residents, a recent General Accounting Office report finds. Even so, “a small but significant share of nursing homes nationwide continue to experience quality-of-care problems,” the report warns.

“In fiscal year 2006, nearly one in five nursing homes was cited for serious deficiencies—those that caused actual harm or placed residents in immediate jeopardy,” the report notes. “In order to guarantee that all nursing home residents receive high-quality care, it is important to maintain the momentum begun by the reforms of OBRA '87 and continue to focus national attention on those homes that cause actual harm to vulnerable residents.”

Elder abuse and neglect are particularly egregious forms of harm, and roughly 30% of nursing homes in the United States were cited for instances of elder abuse during 1999 and 2000, Martin J. Gorbien, MD, who directs the Section of Geriatric Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, reported during the American Geriatrics Society’s (AGS) recent 2007 Annual Scientific Meeting. Dr. Gorbien was one of several speakers who discussed elder mistreatment during the meeting’s two-part symposium on the subject. The first portion of the symposium focused on mistreatment in long-term care. The second highlighted the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to preventing elder abuse and neglect in both community and institutional settings. During the session, speakers offered advice aimed at helping long-term care staff in all disciplines work together to prevent harm to vulnerable elders.

The session was just one of many during AGS’ 2007 meeting that were devoted to issues of concern to professionals in long-term care. If you missed the meeting, the good news is that you can view “webcasts” of this and several other sessions on AGS’ website (www.americangeriatrics.org). Just click on the “2007 Virtual Annual Meeting” link.

The AGS’ Henderson State of the Art Lecture, which focused on medication-related adverse patient events in older adults, is among the sessions that are webcast on the site. As we all know, most nursing home residents take multiple medications and are at risk of such events. The Society’s 2007 Henderson State of the Art Award winner and one of the nation’s leading experts on pharmacoepidemiology and interventions to improve drug therapy for older adults, Joseph T. Hanlon, PharmD, devoted the lecture to describing the most prevalent adverse drug events in older patients and the most promising approaches to preventing them. Such events are far too common, noted Dr. Hanlon, a professor of pharmacy and geriatric medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2000, these drug events were responsible for an estimated $177.4 billion in healthcare costs for ambulatory care patents alone.

In addition to highlighting principles that can help healthcare professionals prevent adverse drug events in older adults, Dr. Hanlon also outlined the far-reaching, system-wide changes that are needed to reduce the incidence of these events. These include increased investment in research, and fundamental changes in health policy, health systems, and health professional education and practice, he noted.

Webcasts of AGS’ 2007 Public Policy Lecture, which examined changes in Medicare’s physician fee schedule, and of sessions concerning such topics as improvements to transitional care, and current and potential treatments for herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia, are among others available via the AGS website. We invite you to take a look.