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Several of our team members showcased their work - PhD students including Anju Wadhawan and Kristen Berryman, MSN, RN, CCM presented insightful research through poster presentations. We’re so proud of their contributions and the knowledge they brought to the national stage!

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New paper published in The Gerontologist, first author Dr. Hyosin (Dawn) Kim from Oregon State University.

Presented now published abstracts:

Methods to construct and analyze cognitive function trajectories using claims and assessment data.

Harmonization of Medicare beneficiaries’ cognitive function data.

End-of-life care disparity for Asian American Pacific Islander and White Americans with dementia. 

Racial/ethnic and sex differences in late-life cognitive trajectories.

Identification and machine learning prediction of Medicare beneficiaries’ cognitive function trajectories.

A novel application of Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars method with mixed-effect latent class analysis of aging trajectories.

Presented now published abstracts:

A Bias-corrected three-step approach to study the association between aging trajectories and sociodemographic and clinical factors.

Health services use and end-of-life outcomes among people with dementia and multiple chronic conditions.

Revealing patterns of cognitive function trajectories in the last five years of life of Medicare beneficiary. 

Variation in survival after dementia diagnosis by sex, race/ethnicity, and geography.  

Care setting trajectories in last three years of life for people with dementia. 

Construction of the cognitive function trajectory file.

New paper published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, first author Dr. Hyosin (Dawn) Kim from Oregon State University

Home health care use in the last three years of a patient’s life is associated with a higher likelihood of hospice care at the end of life, according to a Rutgers Health study. Researchers, whose findings are published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, examined the home health care and hospice care experiences of more than 2 million people.

“In addition to benefits for the patient, hospice care also provides resources and support to help family caregivers cope with the physical, emotional and practical challenges of caring for a loved one at the end of life,” said Olga Jarrín, senior author of the study, the Hunterdon Professor of Nursing Research at the Rutgers School of Nursing and director of the Community Health and Aging Outcomes Laboratory within the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research.

New paper published in BMC Geriatrics, first author Dr. Haiqun Lin from Rutgers School of Nursing

A Rutgers Health analysis of millions of Medicare records has laid the groundwork for improving end-of-life care by demonstrating that nearly all older Americans follow one of nine trajectories in their last three years of life.

“Identifying which paths people actually take is a necessary precursor to identifying which factors send different people down different paths and designing interventions that send more people down whatever path is right for them,” said Olga Jarrín, the Hunterdon Professor of Nursing Research at Rutgers School of Nursing and corresponding author of the study published in BMC Geriatrics.

New paper in Health Services Research, first author Dr. Shekinah Fashaw-Walters from the University of Minnesota.

School of Nursing’s Olga Jarrín leads $5.2 million in NIH-funded studies. The question of how environmental factors including systemic racism impact the quality of health care is a concern long-held by Olga Jarrín Montaner (PhD, RN, FAAN). Beginning with her early experience as an EMT, and later as a community health nurse, she learned firsthand how racism and discrimination, and other environmental and socioeconomic factors impacted health and quality of life in the low-income neighborhoods and Spanish-speaking families she worked with.

If you’re not yet over 65, you may well be caring for someone who is. Over the last decade, the number of Americans 65 and older jumped from 39.6 million to 54.1 million, and it’s expected to reach 80.8 million by 2040. The predicted increase in Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is equally dramatic, projected to grow from 6 million to 15 million by 2060.

Older adults with diabetes are at elevated risk of complications following hospitalization. Home health care services mitigate the risk of adverse events and facilitate a safe transition home. In the United States, when home health care services are prescribed, federal guidelines require they begin within two days of hospital discharge. 

Huge thank to Brionna Robinson for all her work this semester as part of the NJ ACTS Workforce Development internship program! Brionna has been working behind the scenes to help organize more than 20 years of program records for the Rutgers Minority Nurse Leadership Institute and set up a social media presence as the program transitions into the digital era. 

Huge thank to Elena Montgomery for all her work this semester as part of the NJ ACTS Workforce Development internship program! Not every great idea gets funded, but this idea was sure fun to develop. Reach out if you would like more info or to build on what we started!!

Congratulations, Mary Velahos and Nishat Poppy on your Senior Honors Research Presentations and upcoming graduation! Check back for updates on the book chapters they co-authored on Caregiver Role Strain, Impaired Memory, and Wandering which will be part of the Nursing Diagnosis Handbook: An Evidence-Based Guide to Planning Care, 13th ed.

The National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging has awarded Rutgers School of Nursing a multi-year, $2.3 million grant to create a unique and comprehensive research repository of aging trajectory datasets, related resources, and analytic methods that can be used to answer new and important questions in aging and related sciences. Check back for updates!

Congratulations, Dr. Freja Burger on the successful presentation of your DNP project, "An Assessment of Potentially Inappropriate Medication to Improve Senior Consumer Safety in an Outpatient Mental Health Setting." Well done!!

Congratulations, Dr. Jamie M. Smith on the successful defense of you Ph.D. dissertation, "Among Medicare Beneficiaries Living with Diabetes, Does Post-Acute Home Health Care Use Reduce the Risk of Rehospitalization?"

Older adults with diabetes are at elevated risk of complications following hospitalization. Home health care services mitigate the risk of adverse events and facilitate a safe transition home. In the United States, when home health care services are prescribed, federal guidelines require they begin within two days of hospital discharge. 

Racial and ethnic disparities exist in diabetes prevalence, health services utilization, and outcomes including disabling and life-threatening complications among patients with diabetes. Home health care may especially benefit older adults with diabetes through individualized education, advocacy, care coordination, and psychosocial support for patients and their caregivers. 

For each Medicare-certified home health agency, families can use Medicare’s Care Compare to see what percentage of patients are seen within 0-2 days of referral. How important is this? A recent study out of Rutgers, the Keck School of Medicine, and Thomas Jefferson University shows that programs can vary widely in responsiveness to referrals. 

The National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging has awarded Rutgers School of Nursing a four-year, $2.6 million grant to investigate how skilled home health care can reduce racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in palliative and end-of-life care among people diagnosed with dementia.

The information critical to a nationwide priority of reducing health care disparities among minorities is incomplete and inaccurate, according to a new Rutgers study.

New article in the journal Medical Care Research & Review by Irina Grafova and Olga Jarrín.

New article in press for the journal Innovation in Aging by Stephen Crystal, Olga Jarrín, Marsha Rosenthal, Richard Hermida, and Beth Angell.

With hospitals filling up with coronavirus patients, experts said the pandemic has highlighted the increased need and importance of care in the home.

The COVID-19 crisis has uprooted the health care sector and done away with most norms that existed beforehand. That goes for the workers who make up the sector, too. One developing trend to keep an eye on as home-based care plays a bigger part in keeping at-risk seniors safe is the migration of more nurses into the home setting.

Olga Jarrín was interviewed by Catherine Roberts for this Consumer Reports article: What to Do About Your Relatives in Long-Term Care During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Whether you’re bringing a loved one home or helping them from afar, there are a few key questions to answer.

New article in Nephrology Nursing Journal by Maya Clark-Cutaia, Olga Jarrein, Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins, and Karen Hirschman.

New open access article in the journal Medical Care by Olga Jarrín, Abner Nyandege, Irina Grafova, XinQi Dong, and Haiqun Lin.

The world’s older population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. Today, 8.5 percent of people worldwide (617 million) are 65 and older. And, this percentage is projected to jump to nearly 17 percent of the world’s population by 2050 (1.6 billion). 

At-home care organizations across the country are grappling with how to attract and retain staff. Moorestown, New Jersey-based Bayada Home Health Care has tried to solve the industry-wide pain point by exploring creative solutions, including university partnerships. Reasons for at-home care workforce challenges are numerous.

The number of people over the age of 60 is expected to at least double by 2050, with the over-80 population projected to grow at an even faster rate in many countries. To keep national health care spending down, countries will need to figure out ways to support and encourage care that is delivered in the home, the lowest-cost and oft-preferred setting for older adults.

Home care experts have called upon global leaders to address the growing demand for domiciliary care with a greater investment in leadership development, health care system redesign, and payment and policy issues.

In light of the rapidly aging population, health care leaders must address the growing global demand for home care, researchers say.

HealthNewsDigest.com - In a new study, researchers recommend that healthcare leaders address the growing global demand for home care with a greater investment in delivery, affordability and quality.

Available free from the publisher for 50 days, get a copy of our latest article:

Jarrín OF, Pouladi FA, Madigan EA. International priorities for home care education, research, practice, and management: Qualitative content analysis. Nurse Education Today, 2019, 73:83-87. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2018.11.020.

The majority of U.S. hospitals have room to improve nurses’ work environments and assure adequate nurse staffing to improve patient safety, according to a recent study in Health Affairs.

Despite investments by government and private institutions to increase patient safety, progress has been slow and uneven, according to researchers

The initiative fosters a platform to ignite interdisciplinary and transnational aging research initiatives across Rutgers University. Dr. Jarrín, PhD, RN presented on newest findings regarding the impact of home health care on survival for people living with dementia. Keynote Speaker: Dr. Robin Barr, National Institute on Aging, Director, Division of Extramural Activities.

The Institute of Medicine concluded in To Err Is Human in 1999 that transformation of nurse work environments was needed to reduce patient harm. We studied 535 hospitals in four large states at two points in time between 2005 and 2016 to determine the extent to which their work environments improved, and whether positive changes were associated with greater progress in patient safety. Survey data from thousands of nurses and patients showed that patient safety remains a serious concern. Only 21 percent of study hospitals showed sizable improvements in work environment scores, while 7 percent had worse scores. For hospitals in which clinical care environments improved, patients and nurses reported improvements in patient safety indicators. These included increases in percentages of patients rating their hospital favorably and stating that they would definitely recommend the hospital and in percentages of nurses reporting excellent quality of care and giving the hospital a favorable grade on patient safety. Where work environments deteriorated, fewer nurses gave a favorable grade on patient safety. Failure to improve hospital work environments may be hampering progress on patient safety.

Olga F. Jarrin, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Rutgers, is a co-investigator (and the Rutgers sub-award principal investigator) of an NIH-NIA Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) administrative supplement to the NIH-NINR R01 grant “Panel Study of Effects of Changes in Nursing on Patient Outcomes” Principle Investigator: Linda H. Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing. Co-investigators are Douglas Sloane, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Nursing at Penn, and Irina B. Grafova, PhD, Assistant Professor at Rutgers, School of Public Health. The purpose of this person-centered approach is to determine the impact of nurse education, staffing, skill mix, and work environment on trajectories of care and care outcomes for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

NJBiz's write-up about the 2018 home health research grant from the Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation that we will receive! Click below to read the full article!

We are featured in this article in HHCN along with our fellow AHHQI grant awardees.  HHCN touches on why this grant is important in the world of home health care.  Click below to read the full article!

The Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation recently announced their three awardees for its 2018 home health research grant funding cycle, and we are honored to be one of its recipients along with Dr. Rosati of the VNA Health Group.  The grant will allow us to continue our project and our push for home health care for those living with dementia.  Click below to read full article!

Dr. Jarrín co-authored a new paper published by Social Science & Medicine titled "Adaptations of the evidence-based Transitional Care Model in the U.S." Check out the full article here. 

The Rutgers School of Nursing's latest publication highlights Dr. Jarrín's research; check out the entire publication here! 

Faculty summer reading lists, including Dr. Jarrín's picks for caregivers.

Princeton Library recently held a screening of the film "Coming of Age in Aging America" and panel discussion that included Dr. Jarrín.

Adriene Berg's nationally syndicated weekly show on December 17, 2017 was all things dementia care and featured three Rutgers faculty including Dr. Jarrín. Check it out on their website under archived episodes. 

American Nurse Today: Official Journal of the American Nurses Association

Rutgers Today. By Patti Verbanas. Rutgers and Duke University professors explore how to improve care and reduce the use of antipsychotic medications in nursing homes.

Nursing Times. By Steve Ford. Better working environments, including time to care and access to training, are linked with better patient and workforce outcomes in community nursing, according to the first study of its kind.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing's Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), and the Rutgers University School of Nursing examined the factors influencing the likelihood of missed nursing care in the home care setting. Their findings indicate that home care nurses with poor work environments are more likely to miss required care.

My name is Wee Siang Tay and I am a Class of 2019 international student from Singapore in the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program. I am majoring in Economics and currently work with Dr. Olga Jarrín. Previously, I worked in a frontline clinical setting at a hospital and I served in the military.

How do patients from various ethnic and economic backgrounds respond to different models of homecare? As healthcare continues to evolve, homecare providers are playing an expanding role protecting the health of senior citizens, disabled individuals, patients with chronic diseases, and those discharged from the hospital with a need for follow-up care.

A new study confirms a phenomenon long observed by home health workers: emergency room visits are an indicating factor for unplanned readmissions. A study published in the August issue of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice found that the strongest predictor of readmission is a high number of previous...

«Dinero, dinero, dinero, que es lo que la gente entiende». José Antonio Ávila, presidente del Consejo de Enfermería de la Comunidad Valenciana, resumió así de claro el ideario que se marca el colectivo que representa en las Jornadas nacionales que inauguraron ayer en Alicante.

All through nursing school, Melissa Marrero, MSN, RN-BC, was sure she wanted to work in a hospital ICU until she accompanied a home health nurse in New York's Chinatown as part of a clinical rotation in community nursing. I was converted during my senior semester, said Marrero, manager of college relations for Visiting Nurse Service of New York. The mystery of what happens to your patients when you send them home­­ you get to see that.

The National Institutes of Nursing Research is putting $3 million toward further research by Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, that is focusing on how changes in nursing practices can improve patient outcomes. The study, which is getting supplemental funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Alex Hillman Foundation, is looking at nursing practices at some 600 hospitals and hundreds more nursing homes and home care agencies.