Improving elder care by integrating geriatric expertise into medicare: a proposal.
The Medicare programme already funds a large proportion of the medical care for older Americans. However, geriatricians are an underutilized resource for improving the quality of care delivered with Medicare funding, particularly to the most complex patients. Recent legislative changes will increase the involvement of the Medicare programme in the area of outpatient medications. This offers an important opportunity to bring geriatric consultation to bear on a broad range of geriatric prescribing issues, including polypharmacy, pharmacological undertreatment and inappropriate prescription choice.
Nusbaum
Neil J
NJ
Department of Medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford, Rockford, Illinois 61107-1897, USA. nnusbaum@uic.edu
D000368:Aged; D005853:Geriatrics; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D019338:Polypharmacy; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000458:organization & administration*