News
October 23, 2007
Contact: Jerry Carey
Phone: (856) 566-6171
careyge@umdnj.edu
New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging
Wins $3.4 Million in Federal Funding
STRATFORD — The New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging (NJISA) at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine has received more than $3.4 million in grants from the U.S. Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA) to support three different geriatric education programs. The grants became possible when Congress restored the Title VII funds to the current federal budget that it had eliminated the previous year.
“When Congress eliminated these funds last year, it forced geriatric education and training programs across the country to shut down just as aging baby boomers were on the verge of creating unprecedented demands for geriatric services,” said Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, founding director of the NJISA and the interim dean of the UMNDJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine.“For years, these funds enhanced our ability to provide care for older adults and enabled us to train other health professionals throughout the state in the best practices of geriatric healthcare. We’re glad that - for at least the current year - we can resume this important work and we’re very proud of the fact that our school was one of the few in the country to receive all three awards available from HRSA.”
The first award to the NJISA is a three-year, $1.8 million grant to support fellowship training for health professionals who plan to teach geriatric medicine, geriatric dentistry, or geriatric behavioral and mental health. The program will be administered in collaboration with the UMDNJ-New Jersey Dental School and will allow health professionals to gain experience in providing primary and specialty medical care for elderly individuals of different levels of wellness and functioning who come from a range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. The UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine is one of only about a dozen medical schools in the country authorized to provide this level of training.
A second, three-year grant of just under $1.3 million will fund the New Jersey Geriatric Education Center (NJGEC) under the direction of Dr. Anita Chopra, director of Education and Clinical Programs at NJISA. The NJGEC brings together several health professions schools to train faculty, students and practitioners in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and disability in the elderly. Joining the NJISA as partners in the NJGEC are the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Rutgers University School of Social Work, and Raritan Bay Medical Center.
Dr. Terrie Ginsberg and Dr. Martin Forsberg, faculty members at the NJISA, received three-year Geriatric Academic Career Awards (GACA) from HRSA that, together, total $385,000. GACA awards support career development of geriatricians by helping them to develop new curriculum for teaching geriatric medicine that will enhance the delivery of medical services to the elderly.
To request an interview with Dr. Cavalieri, please contact Jerry Carey, UMDNJ News Service, at (856) 566-6171 or (973) 972-5000.
The UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine (http://som.umdnj.edu/) is dedicated to providing excellence in medical education, research and health care for New Jersey and the nation. An emphasis on primary health care and community health services reflects the school’ s osteopathic philosophy, with centers of excellence that demonstrate its commitment to developing clinically skillful, compassionate and culturally competent physicians from diverse backgrounds, who are prepared to become leaders in their communities.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.
