Conference explores how health-care workers can transition patients for better and safer outcomes

Mary Naylor, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s New Courtland Center for Transitions and Health, will frame conversations about transitioning chronically ill people from home or care facilities to hospitals and back again. She will speak during “From Here to There and There to Here”—the 21^st Florence Cellar Conference on Aging, sponsored by the University Center on Aging & Health and the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. Considered a national leader on the forefront of designing and implementing transition models in health care, Naylor will open the conference with the keynote address, “Transitional Care Science and the Transitional Care Model.” She sets the course of discussions to follow during the daylong event, on Friday, April 17, at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights. Transitions in health care are pushing for better communication skills between the system and patients and caregivers, said Diana Morris, director of Case Western Reserve’s University Center on Aging and Health and the Florence Cellar Associate Professor of Nursing, adding that the conference offers approaches to how to accomplish that. “It’s expected that when people are sent home from the hospital or skilled care, there’s a plan in place to manage their health-care needs from medicines, home care, rehabilitation and other supports that allow the person to live as independently as possible in the community,” she said. If transitioning patients between places is not done well, patients can suffer the consequences, said Evelyn Duffy, DNP, AGPCNP-BC, FAANP, chair of the Cellar Conference and associate director of the University Center on Aging and Health and associate professor at the school of nursing. If a patient must return to the hospital within 60 days of their discharge, the hospitals are not fully reimbursed for the patient’s medical care. The conference is designed to reach a breadth of health-care workers—from hospital and residential skilled and long-term care facility administrators to professional care providers, social workers, direct care workers, and caregivers—to learn more about strategies that contribute to the safety and wellbeing of the patient and yet maintain or reduce health costs. Other featured speakers are:

• Robert Applebaum, director of the Ohio Long-Term Care Research Project and professor of sociology and gerontology at Miami University, will address, “The Changing World of Long-Term Care.”

• Gerri Lamb, associate professor of nursing at Arizona State and co-director of INTERACT, a program helping to reduce hospital admissions from skilled-care facilities, will focus on “Quality, Safety and Care Coordination.”

• Ellen Burts-Cooper, adjunct professor at CWRU’s Weatherhead School of Management and senior partner in Improve Consulting and Training Group, will give the luncheon address, “Building Resilient and Productive Teams to Navigate Care Transition.”

• Peter DeGolia, a physician and geriatrician at University Hospitals Case Medical Center Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), a Medicare and Medicaid program that covers all health-care related needs, will discuss the PACE program during the closing Cellar talk.

The Cellar Conference honors Florence Cellar, a 1938 CWRU nursing school alumna, who worked for University Hospitals for 40 years. She was instrumental in establishing the Florence Cellar Associate Professorship in Gerontological Nursing, the country’s first chair in gerontological nursing. The McGregor Foundation, the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, Montefiore and Cleveland State University provided support for the conference. For information or to register, visit fpb.case.edu/cellarconference. Continuing education CEU’s are available for nurses, social workers/counselors, psychologists and for certificate of attendance.