$500,000 to Organizations That Will Help Spread the Use of Vital Medication Optimization Technologies

1/27/10 By David Lindeman

As the Center for Technology and Aging announces its first round of grants to expand use of proven technologies, I am delighted to recognize five outstanding organizations for their innovation, resourcefulness, and practicality in the design of their diffusion programs. As you will see by the variation in the five outstanding grantees, improving the use of medications comes in many forms, be it improved medication adherence, reconciliation or monitoring. The five grantees, include:

• American Society of Consultant Pharmacists Foundation


• Caring Choices , Chico, CA


• Veterans Administration Central California Healthcare System


• Connecticut Pharmacists Foundation


• Center for Homecare Policy and Research, Visiting Nurse Services of New York

Please see the Grantee Abstracts for more details on each project. Whether they are expanding the use of algorithms, medication dispensers, or Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services through telemedicine, all five have proposed promising strategies to rapidly change the behaviors of staff, family caregivers, and clients as well as improve health care outcomes and efficiencies in service delivery.

Over 40 organizations submitted very strong diffusion concepts, all intended to help older adults remain independent. In addition to disseminating diffusion strategies and techniques drawn from the five grantees, the Center expects to identify and share other strategies from successful diffusion programs from throughout the United States, as well as from overseas. We will incorporate learnings from these initiatives within our grants programs as well as standalone learnings accessible through our website and newsletters.

With the release of the Request for Letter of Intent Applications for our second grant cycle focusing on the diffusion of Remote Patient Monitoring technologies, we encourage you to apply or forward the announcement to other organizations. Remote monitoring technologies are rapidly advancing, but appear to be underutilized. By using more effective diffusion strategies, organizations can increase older adults’ access to promising technologies and help reduce the impact of chronic disease, falls, and other health challenges , We look forward to identifying organizations that have successfully adopted and deployed such technologies and sharing their successful strategies.