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Principal Investigator: Patricia Elizabeth Prusaczyk
Organization: WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $116,371
Funding agency: National Institute on Aging
1 This is an application for a K01 award for Beth Prusaczyk, PhD, MSW, whose research focuses
2 on improving the health of vulnerable older adults, such as those with Alzheimer’s disease and
3 related dementias (ADRD) living in rural areas, by improving systems of care. The experiences
4 of those in rural areas with ADRD, including the older adults with ADRD, their caregivers, their
5 health and social service providers, and their community, are distinctly different from those in
6 urban areas. A lack of integration between services is a barrier to caregivers receiving information.
7 Providers desire more integrated services, such as having case managers at primary care offices
8 to help coordinate social services. Failure to improve the communication and care coordination
9 across rural ADRD networks as the aging population increases will compound these existing
10 disparities and result in poorer care for older adults with ADRD in rural settings. Health Information
11 Technology (HIT) tools, such as telehealth, clinical decision support, mobile applications,
12 electronic referrals or prescribing, and others, have been applied in rural areas to ADRD disease
13 risk, testing, and diagnosis, but have not yet been applied to communication and care
14 coordination. The purpose of this K01 is to build off preliminary data and use network analysis to
15 identifying communication and care coordination gaps in two rural ADRD care systems then, in
16 collaboration with local older adults with ADRD, their caregivers, their health and social service
17 providers, select and pilot test a HIT tool to fill those gaps. Specifically, this study will: 1) build
18 network models of communication and care coordination within two rural ADRD networks, and
19 identify factors related to communication and care coordination gaps; 2) assess the perceived
20 usability, feasibility, and acceptability of HIT tools designed to address communication and care
21 coordination in the networks and select a HIT tool to pilot test; and 3) pilot test the communication
22 and care coordination HIT tool in the network. Through this K01 award, Dr. Prusaczyk, who is a
23 health services researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSM), will
24 improve upon and address gaps in her skill set through targeted training activities in: 1) advanced
25 network analysis; 2) HIT; and 3) rural ADRD research. These activities will be possible through
26 resources available at WUSM, including the Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and
27 the Institute for Informatics. Dr. Prusaczyk has the support of an outstanding mentorship team
28 with expertise in ADRD, network analysis, rural health services research, and HIT. This research
29 is significant because it will yield a comprehensive understanding of rural ADRD systems – a
30 critical context for which there is limited knowledge – and a possible solution for improvement.
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