You’ve got to link her with social services that can help her solve the housing problem, the flea problem and the various related issues affecting her health.” It’s not enough to just give her an antibiotic. “She has an infected wound that she got from a flea bite. For example, she recalled a recent patient, an older, near-homeless woman living alone with her dog. Geriatric scholars will be encouraged to look at the “big picture” and connect seniors with community resources to help them overcome obstacles to care, Chau said. The program will also include a geriatrics pharmacy component through a fellowship recently established through a collaboration with Jonathan Watanabe, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
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After that, a continuing education program being developed under the grant will be used to train additional health professionals regionally and nationally, said Chau, who is also medical director of the Community Living Center, the San Diego VA hospital’s skilled nursing facility.Ĭhau said the interdisciplinary program will teach doctors, nurses, social workers and other allied health professionals about how to handle the special needs and challenges of the elderly, keeping in mind economic, cultural or logistical barriers to health care.
The UC San Diego Geriatric Scholars program, launched in July, will educate 12 trainees per year, producing a total of 36 graduates over the three-year grant period. Many of their issues are social problems-fixed income, isolation, inability to drive-that inhibit their ability to get care.” “It takes more than the typical 15-minute doctor’s office visit.
“In this age of quick fixes, we don’t have a quick fix for some of the problems of the elderly,” said Chau. Department of Health and Human Services and is part of a $35.7 million national Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program, which seeks to improve the quality of health care for older Americans. Geriatric Scholars is funded by a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. The program will help train health workers in San Diego County how to care for the elderly, with a particular emphasis on homeless seniors, older Latinos in economically disadvantaged areas and seniors in rural communities. Such interventions may seem out-of-the ordinary, but for Chau this comprehensive real-world approach is exactly what’s needed to better care for homeless seniors as well as older Americans from medically underserved populations.Ī board-certified geriatric specialist, Chau heads the new Geriatric Scholars program in the Division of Geriatrics, part of the Department of Medicine. “We need to intervene in a broader, more comprehensive way.”įor the homeless man with diabetes, that means helping establish a safe living situation, connecting him with social service meal delivery programs and services and ensuring regular treatment at a community health clinic. Diane Chau, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and a physician at Veteran Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. “There’s no point in simply giving this patient insulin and telling him to get on a restricted diet,” said Dr.
Reams of medical books and guidelines exist on how to manage a patient’s diabetes, but much of that goes out the window when your patient is a 70-year-old homeless man eating out of a trashcan. Complex Health Issues of Aging Patients Not Solved in a Senior Moment Program teaches medical professionals how to address obstacles to care, such as isolation and homelessness
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