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The Health Resources & Services Administration has awarded Rachel Jantea, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, with the Geriatrics Academic Career Award.

The award comes with a four-year, $87,000 per year grant to fund Jantea's project, titled "Leveraging resources and expertise to build Age-Friendly Health Systems to improve delirium and dementia care." The GAC Award will allow Jantea to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to lead health care transformation in a variety of settings, such as rural and/or medically underserved settings, and provide training in clinical geriatrics, including the training of interprofessional teams of health care professionals to provide health care for older adults.

Acquiring that skill set will then allow Jantea to apply that knowledge to begin the transformation of clinical learning environments into Age-Friendly Health Systems by training interprofessional teams in 4Ms-based (what matters, medication, mentation, and mobility) geriatrics while concentrating on delirium and dementia care in acute settings.

These changes will address a priority area for the HRSA in increasing telehealth access and age-friendly care to medically underserved areas, nursing homes, and online learning platforms.

“Receiving this award has been a goal of mine for nearly 10 years,” Jantea said. “As a geriatrics clinician educator focused on interprofessional education and practice, this award gives me the support to train health care providers to provide the highest quality of care for Houston’s older adults, while developing as a national leader in the field of geriatric interprofessional education and practice. I feel very blessed to have the support of my mentors, my department, and UTHealth Houston in this endeavor.”

Jantea received her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 2013 before completing an internal medicine residency (2016), geriatric medicine fellowship (2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship (2019) from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Jantea also completed a masters in medical education at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 2019.

Jantea joined the McGovern Medical School faculty as an assistant professor in 2019 and also serves as the director of education for the UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging and as the McGovern Medical School faculty director for the Texas Joint Admissions Medical Program.

Nearly 4 million people in Texas are over the age of 65, making up nearly 15% of the state’s population, according to a 2019 report. By the year 2050, 1 in 4 adults in the United States will be older than 65. As the population of older adults continues to grow, so does the need for quality health care and powerful research.

Researchers and physicians across all schools at UTHealth Houston are prepared to take on this challenge with the newly established UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging, positioning the university to become a leader in aging and health care for older adults. The new institute will build on the foundation of the UTHealth Houston Consortium on Aging.

“Establishing the Institute on Aging demonstrates the substantial commitment by UTHealth Houston to advance healthy aging and age-friendly care within our health care institutions, in the training of our students, through the promotion of research and clinical innovation, and through outreach to older adults and caregivers across Houston,” said Aanand Naik, MD, executive director of the UTHealth Houston Institute on Aging.

Naik is professor and chair of the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health with UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and holds the Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD, Distinguished Chair with UTHealth Houston. Naik is also a member of the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston.

The new institute will undertake innovative research and disseminate innovations that enable older adults to achieve what matters most in their lives. Faculty with the institute will also enhance care for the elderly population in Houston, with a focus on overall healthy aging, frailty and resilience, as well as elder abuse, mistreatment, and financial exploitation.

“The institute provides a lasting home for innovations in healthy aging for UTHealth Houston and the Houston community to advance the research, clinical models, education, and community outreach that will improve the lives of older people,” said Holly M. Holmes, MD, vice president of community engagement at UTHealth Houston and director of the Joan and Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at McGovern Medical School.

Of the 650,000 physicians practicing in the U.S., fewer than 9,000 are geriatricians — or 2.4 geriatricians per 10,000 people over 75 years of age. Fewer than 3% of medical students choose elective courses in geriatrics. Likewise, there is a growing demand for nurses with specialized training in caring for older people, as well as dentists and pharmacists who understand the unique needs of the older person.

The UTHealth Houston Consortium on Aging was established in 2010 by the late Carmel B. Dyer, MD, to help meet the challenge of providing quality health care for the growing population of older adults in Houston. It is a university-wide collaboration which focuses on the expertise of all UTHealth Houston schools, encompassing medicine, nursing, dentistry, public health, biomedical informatics, and biomedical sciences. 

Consortium members established centers of excellence to combat elder abuse and to support mobile and connected health, and distributed seed grants to new investigators. This foundational work inspired Dyer’s novel age-friendly health care delivery model which greatly increased the quality of care for older adults while reducing costs.

To date, there are over 200 members of the consortium. Members of the consortium will now be part of the institute. 

“The institute will build on the critical mass and collective efforts of the members of the Consortium on Aging, opening the way for new collaborations and advances,” said Holmes, the Joan and Stanford Alexander Chair in Gerontology with McGovern Medical School.

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Renowned geriatrician Aanand Naik, MD, has been named the Nancy P. and Vincent F. Guinee, MD Distinguished Chair and executive director of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) Consortium on Aging.

Naik was also appointed chair of the Department of Management, Policy and Community Health, and associate dean for Learning Health Systems at UTHealth School of Public Health.

Established in 2010, the Consortium on Aging is a university-wide collaborative which leverages the strengths and expertise of all UTHealth Houston schools with a focus on issues related to aging. Its goal is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the areas of clinical care, education, research, and community outreach on behalf of older adults, caregivers, and patients. The executive director role was previously held by Naik’s longtime colleague and mentor, the late Carmel Dyer, MD.

“Dr. Dyer left a lasting impression on me and on the Consortium. It is an honor to step into this role and continue her legacy,” said Naik.

The Consortium on Aging has been led most recently by Amy Franklin, PhD, associate professor and associate dean for student, faculty, and community affairs with UTHealth Houston School of Biomedical Informatics. Franklin has been a respected steward of the Consortium, and will continue to play an active role in the Consortium moving forward.

Naik joins UTHealth Houston after serving as professor, the Robert J. Luchi, MD Chair in Geriatric Medicine, and chief of the Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine division at Baylor College of Medicine. An important aspect of Naik’s career has been his clinical, training, and scholarship work at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in the Texas Medical Center. He directed advanced fellowship programs in health services research and big data science. He was also director of the coordinating center for the National VA Quality Scholars Program from 2014 through 2019. Naik will maintain his affiliation with the DeBakey VA Medical Center.

“We are very excited to have Dr. Naik join the team. He brings unique experience and expertise that will contribute to advancements in the care of aging individuals in our community. UTHealth Houston is committed to these efforts and we look forward to working with Dr. Naik,” said Michael Blackburn, PhD, executive vice president and chief academic officer at UTHealth Houston.

Having spent his career researching health care delivery, quality improvement, and outcomes for geriatric populations, Naik’s expertise will align well with his leadership roles at the Consortium on Aging and UTHealth School of Public Health.

As head of the Department of Management, Policy and Community Health at the School of Public Health, Naik will develop and grow faculty across key programs, promote research initiatives conducted throughout the department, and continue his federally funded research program. His research focuses on the development and testing of decision-making interventions to improve the outcomes of older adults with multiple morbid conditions.

“I’m looking forward to building the depth of scientific expertise within the department and working directly with my colleagues,” Naik said. “These are the people that will make scientific contributions that impact care in the real world.”

“Dr. Naik’s focused expertise coupled with his proven ability to lead, mentor, and collaborate are in keeping with the culture at UTHealth School of Public Health,” said Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, dean of UTHealth School of Public Health. “I look forward to seeing his future accomplishments as a leader and educator, and the continued development of health services research and a functional learning health system across UTHealth Houston and our clinical partners.”

Naik received his medical degree and clinical training in internal medicine and geriatrics at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He also completed postdoctoral research fellowship training at the RWJF Clinical Scholars Program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.