News/Press Releases

New York (March 17, 2017)—Healthcare professionals across the Atlantic and around the world need to think beyond single-disease guidelines as they look to provide high-quality, person-centered care for more and more older adults living with multiple chronic conditions, so say editors from the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and the British Geriatrics Society's (BGS's) Age and Ageing in the first from a series of joint editorials launched today. The series will look for common ground in geriatrics "across the pond," beginning here with the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on multimorbidity, the medical term for those living with several chronic health concerns.

"The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on multi-morbidity challenges physicians and health care providers to adopt an holistic approach that takes full and proper account of multimorbidity. It addresses a common flaw in all contemporary health services that frail, multi-morbid patients are often subjected to futile or even harmful investigations and treatments," note David J. Stott, MBChB, MD, FRCP, and John Young, MSc, authors of the BGS editorial and Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor, respectively, of Age and Ageing.

New York (Mar. 16, 2017)—The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) expressed its deep disappointment with proposed cuts to geriatrics training, healthcare research, and a range of services for older adults—all outlined by President Trump in his budget plan for 2018. 

Among several concerns, the AGS noted that the budget would eliminate $403 million from training programs that educate the doctors, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, social workers, and many other health professionals essential to our care as we age. The Trump proposal is premised on a flawed assumption that health professions and nursing training programs “lack evidence that they significantly improve the Nation’s health workforce.” 

“We are especially concerned about the potential impact of these cuts on the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) under Titles VII and VIII,” said Nancy E. Lundebjerg, MPA, Chief Executive Officer of the AGS. “This is the only federal program aimed at improving the quality, safety, and affordability of our care by increasing the number of professionals with the skills needed to care for us as we age.” 

New York (March 9, 2017)—As an organization dedicated to the health and well-being of us all as we age, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) today voiced opposition to several components of the newly released American Health Care Act—legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and legislation AGS experts believe would harm access to key health services for older adults, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.

“Policy changes that would increase costs, reduce coverage, or cut benefits put health, independence, and quality of life at risk for all of us as we age,” notes Nancy E. Lundebjerg, MPA, Chief Executive Officer of the AGS. “We are committed to working with Congress and the Trump Administration on meaningful reforms that would improve health care, for example, by reducing regulatory burdens, but we continue to oppose changes like those proposed in the American Health Care Act, which might jeopardize access to high-quality, person-centered, and affordable health coverage for all older Americans.”

New York (Jan. 31, 2017)—The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) opposes discrimination against healthcare professionals or older people based on race, color, religion, gender (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), disability, age, or national origin. We believe that such discriminatory practices can have a negative impact on public health, especially the health of older Americans and vulnerable older people.

We are particularly concerned about the impact on the healthcare workforce of the recent Executive Order (EO), "Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States," issued by the President of the United States on January 27, 2017. The EO imposes a 90-day suspension on visas and other immigration benefits for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen attempting to travel to the United States.

The AGS values the significant contributions of health professionals from diverse backgrounds to the care of older people. For almost two decades, we have focused on helping health professionals better understand how to care for the diverse population of older adults. In addition, our international colleagues have advanced our understanding of how to care for older adults through contributions to our journals, meetings, and publications.

New York (Jan. 24, 2017)— With $1.4 million in renewed support from The John A. Hartford Foundation, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) will launch a new national program that positions geriatricians and geriatrics-trained clinicians as co-managers with orthopedic surgeons to improve care and health outcomes, while lowering costs, for older adults with hip fractures.

Geriatrics-orthopedics co-management incorporates a geriatrics approach to care as soon as possible after an older person enters the hospital for a hip fracture, helping to identify and reduce the risk for harmful events ranging from falls and delirium to infections. The model has been shown to reduce length of stay, re-admissions, and most complications, and to increase an older person’s chances of going home directly from the hospital, often resulting in improved function and independence.

Hip fractures hospitalize more than 260,000 older adults annually, and could hospitalize 500,000 older adults each year by 2040. They are the third most costly diagnosis in the U.S., totaling more than $18 billion in 2012.

On behalf of older adults, caregivers, and health professionals, AGS reiterates its commitment to work collaboratively to strengthen clinical care and nurture workforce equipped to care for us all as we age.

New York (Jan. 12, 2017)—In letters to President-elect Donald Trump and Congress, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) has reinforced the importance of collaborating to support older Americans through critical programs and policies.

“In our letters, we focused on programs that are critical to the clinical care of older Americans and their families, and to ensuring that we have a workforce with the skills and competence to care for us all as we age,” notes Nancy E. Lundebjerg, MPA, Chief Executive Officer of the AGS. “We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress on public policy solutions that will achieve our vision for a future when every older American receives high‐quality, person‐centered care.”

As outlined by the AGS, that vision for the future involves federal and state policies that continue to:

Experts call for “national effort” supporting older adults who are already or might soon be “unbefriended”—a term for those who lack designated decision-makers and are no longer able to make medical decisions on their own.

New York (Nov. 22, 2016)—Experts at the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) today unveiled new guidance on care and decision-making for a unique and growing group of older adults: the “unbefriended.” Proposed clinical practice and public policy changes would support some of society’s most vulnerable individuals while also helping protect more of us from becoming unbefriended as we age.

The “unbefriended” lack the capacity to provide informed consent to medical treatment, often due to declines in physical and/or mental well-being. But these individuals face added challenges because they have no written outline of their care preferences and also have no identified “surrogate,” such as a family member or friend, to assist in medical decision-making when needed. Baby boomers are at particular risk for becoming unbefriended, since more than 10 million boomers live alone and as many as 20 percent have no children.

New York (Nov. 4, 2016)—This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Final 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Rule showing their continued support for reimbursing services provided to Medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions.  

As a result of ongoing advocacy from the AGS and our fellow stakeholders, these proposals, which will take effect in 2017, recognize much of the cognitive work that geriatrics healthcare professionals, primary care providers, and other cognitive specialists currently and regularly provide—until now without reimbursement. 

Starting Jan. 1, 2017, CMS will recognize the following services for Medicare beneficiaries:

Experts from across geriatrics assessed research published since the new millennium to identify 20 seminal articles on everything from cognition and physical disabilities to frailty and medication use

• New @AGSJournal editorial, virtual issue commemorate 20 studies that shaped #geriatrics from 2000-2015 

New York (Aug. 24, 2016)—A new editorial and corresponding virtual journal issue offer a look back at 20 of the most important studies impacting older adult care as published by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) from 2000 to 2015.

This retrospective on nearly two decades of scholarship provides perspective on how geriatrics, gerontology, and long-term care evolved since the new millennium, and where and why that progress continues to impact the present and future of eldercare expertise. Thomas T. Yoshikawa, MD, AGSF—who served as Editor-in-Chief of JAGS during this timeframe—authored the editorial outlining article selections with current Executive Editor Joseph G. Ouslander, MD, AGSF, and new JAGS Editor-in-Chief William B. Applegate, MD, MPH, MACP, AGSF.

More than $173,000 from the nation’s penultimate research body will support a series of scientific conferences pushing eldercare expertise to meet the needs of America’s growing older adult population.

New York (June 17, 2016)—The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) will continue a series of prestigious scientific conferences on emerging issues in geriatrics thanks to sustained funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Conference Cooperative Agreement (or “U13”) Program. More than $173,000 in funding over five years will enable the AGS to continue coordinating U13 “bench-to-bedside” conferences on new topics pertinent to older adults. This recently funded series will focus on developing and prioritizing an actionable agenda related to multimorbidity by focusing each of three conferences on a common and clinically important pair of co-existing chronic conditions: sensory impairment and cognitive decline, osteoporosis and soft tissue (muscle/fat) disorders, and cancer and cardiovascular disease. Since 2004 the AGS has worked with the NIA through the NIH U13 Program to explore and clarify insights on the cutting-edge of geriatrics, having addressed sleep and circadian rhythms (2015) and delirium (2014) in recent years.