UofL's Optimal Aging Clinic recognized as an age-friendly health system

The Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic at the University of Louisville Trager Institute has been recognized as an Age-Friendly Health System by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The recognition acknowledges the clinic’s commitment to improve health care for older adults and comes just over one year after it opened.

“It is so exciting that the Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic received the Age-Friendly recognition so shortly after celebrating our one-year anniversary,” said Anna Faul, executive director of the UofL Trager Institute and the Optimal Aging Clinic. “This recognition serves as a testament to the impact we’ve made during our first year. We strive to be on the forefront of patient care for older adults and we look forward to continuing to provide every older adult with the best care possible as part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative.”

As part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, are helping hospitals, clinics and other care settings implement evidence-based interventions specifically designed to improve care for older adults. 

The interventions are tested and adapted through participation in Age-Friendly Health Systems Action Communities. These collaborative entities are comprised of health care teams from across the country that are committed to sharing data and learning together. The teams work to implement best practices across emergency departments, intensive care units, medical-surgical units, general wards and primary and specialty care settings.

The Optimal Aging Clinic now joins more than 450 health systems working to make care for older adults even more tailored to patients’ goals and preferences and consistently of high-quality as part of the initiative, which is based on a series of practices focused on addressing four essential elements of care for older patients known as the 4Ms:

• What Matters: Know and align care with each older adult's specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care, and across settings of care.
• Medication: If medication is necessary, use age-friendly medications that do not interfere with What Matters to the older adult, Mobility, or Mentation across settings of care.
• Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat and manage dementia, depression and delirium across settings of care.
• Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day in order to maintain function and do What Matters.

Joe D’Ambrosio, director of behavioral health at the UofL Trager Institute and Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic, says the Age-Friendly initiative also is infused in the organization’s Behavioral Health Services Organization.

“We are so happy to include this initiative in the work we do with our therapy patients,” D’Ambrosio said. “The 4Ms of the initiative align perfectly with the behavioral health interventions we share with patients in their efforts to age optimally and we are excited to build upon the progress we have made in our first year to continue to help older adults thrive as they age.”

Learn more about the Republic Bank Optimal Aging Clinic in a video created to celebrate the clinic’s first anniversary.