The Center for Long-Term Care Quality & Innovation, known as Q&I, is a sister research center to the Center for Gerontology. Unique among academic research centers nationwide, its mission is to improve care for older adults by testing and disseminating proven interventions. To do this, Q&I partners with innovators—who may or may not be researchers—with promising interventions, but who lack the skills or data necessary to establish an evidence base.
Q&I was founded with a $1M gift from the America Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, which represents two-thirds of the country’s nursing homes, with the goal of catalyzing interventional research on topics of importance to health care providers.
Since its 2015 launch, Q&I has cultivated a diverse portfolio of studies representing nearly $9M in grant funding. This is apart from the recent $53M grant from the National Institute on Aging to fund and support nondrug dementia intervention research.
The common theme among Q&I’s projects? Innovation; either in terms of the intervention itself or the pragmatic methods that the Q&I team continually refines. Q&I researchers conduct research under real-world conditions in health care settings, and connect with providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to translate effective interventions into widespread practice.
“Too often, promising interventions lack the evidence to prove they are effective,” said Rosa Baier, MPH, who leads Q&I and is associate professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice. “Our role is to link the provider and academic communities, in order to conduct pragmatic research that establishes the evidence base for innovative practices, and then ensures effective interventions are adopted.”
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