Grant application guidelines released by The Center for Technology and Aging

The Center for Technology and Aging today released grant application guidelines for a $500,000 Medication Optimization Diffusion Grants Program. Up to six one-year grants will be made to organizations successfully proposing programs that directly benefit older adults. Four or five grants will focus on Californians, while one or two may benefit older adults in other regions of the U.S.

"Medication-related errors are taking a terrible toll on the health and lives of older adults," said David Lindeman, Ph.D., director of the Center for Technology and Aging. "Of the three billion medication prescriptions issued each year in the U.S., 12% are never picked up by the patient and 40% are not taken correctly. Yet, effective tools and technologies already exist to greatly reduce these problems."

Medication optimization refers to a wide variety of technologies designed to help manage medication information, dispensing, adherence and tracking.

Programs eligible for grants must use technologies that are ready to be used more broadly. Grantees will be expected to have prior experience with medication optimization technologies and will need to demonstrate a positive and measurable impact in the near term, including reducing the likelihood that older adults will be moved to more intensive, high-cost care settings. Most importantly, programs receiving grants will need to propose a strategy for successfully integrating their technology into the fabric of state and national health care delivery and reimbursement systems.

The deadline to submit Letters of Intent is Midnight PDT, Friday, October 2, 2009. Applicants will be notified of their selection to submit a full proposal by October 14, 2009. The anticipated start date for grants is January 1, 2010. Application information is available for download at www.techandaging.org/medopgrant.pdf or at www.techandaging.org.

In August the Center released "Technologies To Help Older Adults Maintain Independence: Advancing Technology Adoption," a briefing paper that describes seven technology areas with significant potential of improving chronic health care of older adults, while reducing health care costs.