LETTER
Academic Medical Centers and Nursing Home Affiliations
David Hamerman, MD
1 September 1994 | Volume 121 Issue 5 | Page 389
TO THE EDITOR:
Besdine and colleagues [1] in their thoughtful editorial highlighted a need for physicians' services from the perspective of the nursing homes and their residents. I would like to emphasize the need for academic medical centers to affiliate with nursing homes, in addition to sites for "step-down" care mentioned by the authors. They have provided a unique site for collaboration programs for training, education, and research [2] through initiatives undertaken by the National Institute on Aging [3], the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Veterans Affairs Administration. A recent survey of 121 medical schools indicated that 90% had some affiliation, compared with only 35% in 1980 [4]. However, among the 17 000 nursing homes, only 248 were affiliated with medical schools.
Academic medical center faculty in many disciplines can gain experience in such areas as the clinical and research perspective of chronic diseases over time [5], an appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of care, and compliance with health policy formulations and regulatory guidelines. Such collaboration can also provide an incentive for developing student and housestaff rotations there that encourage in more integrated care by health professionals.
1. Besdine RW, Rubenstein LZ, Cassel C. Nursing home residents need physicians' services (Editorial). Ann Intern Med. 1994; 120:616-8.
2. Hamerman D. Evolution of affiliations between academic medical centers and nursing homes. Journal of Medical Direction. 1992; Jan:37-40.
3. Butler RW. The teaching nursing home. JAMA. 1981; 245:1435-7.
4. Schneider EL, Ory M, Aung ML. Teaching nursing homes revisited. Survey of affiliations between American medical schools and long term care facilities. JAMA. 1987; 257:2771-5.
5. Aronson MK, Hamerman D, Wolfson L. Research with the old-old in the context of a teaching nursing home. Einstein Quarterly Journal of Biology and Medicine. 1988; 6:190-4.
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