Creating a new model to train a high-quality primary care workforce is of great interest to American health care stakeholders. There is consensus that effective educational approaches need to be combined with a rewarding work environment, emphasize a good work/life balance, and a focus on achieving meaningful outcomes that center on patients and the public. Still, significant barriers limit the numbers of clinicians interested in pursuing careers in primary care, including low earning potential, heavy medical school debt, lack of respect from physician colleagues, and enormous burdens of record keeping. To enlarge and energize the pool of primary care trainees, we look especially at changes that focus on institutions and the practice environment. Students and residents need training environments where primary care clinicians and interdisciplinary teams play a crucially important role in patient care. For a variety of reasons, many academic medical centers cannot easily meet these standards. The authors propose that a major part of primary care education and training be re-located to settings in high-performing health systems built on comprehensive integrated care models where primary care clinicians play a principle role in leadership and care delivery.

The safety net, a collection of public hospitals, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), and publicly funded community-based healthcare entities, provides essential care to middle-aged and older adults with geriatric conditions. The role of the safety net for these adults will intensify over the next two decades with the growing numbers of middle-aged and older adults with adverse social determinants of health and premature geriatric conditions. The foundation for addressing their needs is to detect geriatric conditions and then focus care plans on the impact of these factors on function, which predicts mortality and quality of life more than chronic conditions alone. To detect geriatric conditions in safety net populations, the Age-Friendly Health System (AFHS) framework offers an evidence-based focus on the 4Ms: Mentation, Mobility, Medications, and what Matters. Further incorporating geriatric care models that target the 4Ms and are adapted to safety net populations will enable age-friendly care that optimizes health and addresses what matters to older people.

Background

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA), convened a 2020 Dementia Care, Caregiving, and Services Research Summit Virtual Meeting Series. This review article summarizes three areas of emerging science that are likely to grow in importance given advances in measurement, technologies, and diagnostic tests that were presented at the Summit.

Results

Dr. Cassel discussed novel ethical considerations that have resulted from scientific advances that have enabled early diagnosis of pre-clinical dementia. Dr. Monin then summarized issues regarding emotional experiences in persons with dementia and their caregivers and care partners, including the protective impact of positive emotion and heterogeneity of differences in emotion by dementia type and individual characteristics that affect emotional processes with disease progression. Finally, Dr. Jared Benge provided an overview of the role of technologies in buffering the impact of cognitive change on real-world functioning and their utility in safety and monitoring of function and treatment adherence, facilitating communication and transportation, and increasing access to specialists in underserved or remote areas.

Conclusions

National policy initiatives, supported by strong advocacy and increased federal investments, have accelerated the pace of scientific inquiry and innovation related to dementia care and services but have raised some new concerns regarding ethics, disparities, and attending to individual needs, capabilities, and preferences.