A Preview of the AGS 2008 Annual Scientific Meeting

The American Geriatrics Society’s 2008 Annual Scientific Meeting, slated for April 30th through May 4th in Washington, DC, will cover the waterfront of topics and issues central to elder healthcare, with many of them of particular relevance to long-term care. AGS’ Long-term Care Special Interest Group will meet May 1. That same day, the 2008 Henderson State-of-the-Art Lecture will look at frailty, a leading risk factor for institutionalization.

The 2008 winner of AGS’ Edward Henderson Award, Linda P. Fried, MD, director of the Center on Aging and Health, division of geriatric medicine and gerontology, and the Training Program in Clinical and Population-Based Research on Aging at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, will deliver the Henderson lecture. Dr. Fried, a leading expert on frailty and disability whose research has focused, among other things, on the causes of frailty and disability and their prevention, will share findings from her and related research during the lecture.

During the plenary paper session later that day, and the geriatric syndromes paper session slated for May 3, Debra Saliba, MD, director of UCLA’s Borun Center for Gerontological Research, will present eye-opening research regarding the widely used Minimum Data Set (MDS). Her first study compares the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency of the MDS 2.0, the Patient Health Questionnaire–9, and the Geriatric Depression Scale in detecting mood disorders in long-term care residents. The second study evaluates the clinical relevance, reliability, and efficiency of the revised MDS 3.0, which will be implemented nationwide in October 2009.

Dr. Saliba is the principal investigator in the MDS 3.0 national project for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and a related national consortium of nursing home researchers involved in efforts to improve the way nursing homes evaluate and report on the health status of their residents. “What Every Geriatrician and Geriatric Health Provider Needs to Know About Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans,” a symposium scheduled for May 1, will focus on the effects that Special Needs Plans have had on the delivery of healthcare to select groups, including institutionalized elders. Later that day, "Regional Differences in Management of Medicare Long-Term Care Quality Indicators and Implications for Geriatric Practice," a symposium, will provide an overview of the CMS Quality Improvement Program now in use in nursing homes.

"Collaboration to Incorporate a Prehospice Palliative Program in the Nursing Home: Focus on Community, Family, Caregivers, and Empowerment,” a May 1 workshop, will examine barriers to providing prehospice palliative care in nursing homes. Barbara J. Messinger-Rapport, MD, PhD, a nursing home medical director, staff physician in geriatrics, assistant professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and director of the Cleveland Clinic –Summa Health System geriatric fellowship program, will moderate the workshop, which will explore care and communication strategies for supplementing existing care plans and palliative care programs in nursing homes.

Also on May 1, "Strategies for Improving Care in Patients with Advanced Dementia and Feeding Problems: An Interdisciplinary Discussion," will look at the complex decision-making process surrounding the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration to patients with advanced dementia. Caroline A. Vitale, MD, assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College and a member of AGS’ Ethics Committee, will moderate the symposium, which was developed by committee. Designed for healthcare professionals in all settings, "GRECC Workshop – Using Health IT to Improve Medication Management of Geriatric Patients: Lessons Learned from Selected Implementations of Computerized Decision Support” is scheduled for May 1 as well. The workshop will offer a range of perspectives on clinical decision support, primarily as it relates to medication management in inpatient and outpatient settings, in nursing homes, and during transitions among these settings.

On Friday, May 2, there’s “Cross-Cultural Communication for End-of-Life Care.” This workshop, developed by AGS’ Physicians in Geriatrics Special Interest Group and the AGS Ethics Committee, will address contributors to disparities in end-of-life care and examine how clinicians can enhance such care through improved communication. “The Benefits and Pitfalls of Screening in Very Frail Older Persons,” slated for May 3, will identify some of the problems with benchmark objectives that equate high rates of screening with better quality of care for the frail elderly. Speaker Louise C. Walter, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco’s geriatrics division, will outline strategies for improvement. We hope you’ll join us for what will be a highly informative and thought-provoking annual meeting, and take advantage of the numerous opportunities for networking and earning continuing education credit that it affords.

Pre-registration for the meeting is now open, and registering before March 24 entitles you to a discount on registration fees. In addition to numerous other benefits, AGS members are entitled to a further discount on meeting registration fees, so this is the ideal time to join or renew your membership if you haven’t done so already. You can register and either renew your membership or become a member simply by visiting https://www.americangeriatrics.org.