Training Leaders to Improve Outcomes in Older Adults Using Advanced Methods

Despite decades of effort, the clinical care of older adults continues to be characterized by poor quality and adverse outcomes. My work to date has focused on identifying goals of care for older adults (what matters), particularly at high-risk and high-cost times in their care trajectory, then trying to align care delivery and payment with those goals. My overall goal for this K24 award is to expand my ability to provide high-quality mentorship to help train the next generation of leaders in research to improve the care of older adults. I plan to accomplish this goal through two primary Aims. First, I will build my capacity to support an effective mentorship program that will support and expand mentees conducting patient-oriented research (POR) to improve care delivery for older adults. This K24 will provide the protected time and infrastructure to allow me to accomplish this Aim through 5 activities: 1) recruit mentees who demonstrate a shared commitment to POR to improve care delivery for older adults; 2) provide research support and mentorship to individual mentees; 3) build my knowledge of geriatrics principles and provide opportunities for mentees, through strong local collaborations, an advisory board of gerontologists and geriatricians, and national training opportunities; 4) develop my skills as a mentor through evidence-based training and structured feedback from both my mentors and mentees; and 5) leverage additional research skills gained through the K24 to grow my research program as a platform to support and expand mentees’ research in POR to improve care delivery for older adults. Second, I will conduct high-impact POR examining optimal ways to implement improved care delivery and payment models that incentivize care around what matters to older adults. I will accomplish this Aim by continuing my current research activities and developing new skills that will enable me to expand my research activities. This K24 will enable me to develop research skills in: 1) using electronic health record data to spur improvements in care delivery; and 2) survey methods, including design, development, sampling, and interpretation of results. I will use these skills to expand my current research seeking to improve the care of older adults in skilled nursing facilities, and propose novel areas of research evaluating the impact of new benefits provided by Medicare Advantage plans on the ability of older adults to “age in place.” These new projects – in addition to data already created as part of funded research– will provide novel datasets, partnerships, and analytic techniques mentees can use to support their own research. My ongoing and proposed research, coupled with my mentorship program to train outstanding investigators in the field, will help address the pressing need to improve care for older adults in health systems in the US. These POR projects will help to align care delivery and payment models with the goals of older adults at high-risk times in their care trajectory, and this approach holds promise for addressing a wide range of care delivery settings and payment models. Project Number: 1K24AG093226-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute on Aging (NIA) | Principal Investigator: Robert Burke | Institution: UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA | Award Amount: $214,223 | Activity Code: K24 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZRG1 CCHI-N (52)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11302219