September 8, 2026
Let’s Support High-Quality Research in Post-Acute and Long-Term Care
By Barbara Zarowitz, PharmD, MSW, BCGP, BCPS, FPALTC
Drum roll, please! The Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine is thrilled to announce two research awards thus far in 2026! Troy Alexander, a Schreyer Honors Scholar at Penn State University, in collaboration with Liza Behrens, PhD, RN, a health services researcher in the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing, will receive funding for their work entitled, “Medical Director Engagement in Nursing Homes: Perceptions, Roles, and Pathways to Quality Improvement.” The overall objective of their work is to understand how nursing home (NH) medical directors perceive and enact their leadership role. The primary aim is to describe engagement across PALTmed’s four domains of responsibility for medical directors—physician leadership, patient care/clinical leadership, quality of care, and education/dissemination—and identify barriers, facilitators, and mechanisms through which engagement can influence NH care quality. Using semi-structured interviews in a national sample of NH medical directors, investigators will apply thematic content analysis to inform a preliminary framework and future strategies to strengthen medical director engagement in NHs.
The second project funded by the Foundation is entitled, “Clinician-Directed Care Task Design for Multimodal Robotic Health Attendant (RHA) in Long-Term Parkinson’s Care.” The principal investigator, Kyungki Kim, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Her co-investigator, John R. Windle, MD, is a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Center for Intelligent Health Care at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The project intends to conduct feasibility testing of the Holland Robotic Health Attendant, which they designed and developed. The robot will conduct clinician-defined tasks that involve robot skill sequences and operating parameters such as movement speed, voice, and alert cues for the Parkinson patient population. They plan to use NASA Task Load Index measures in a failure modes and effects analysis. They are collaborating with a PACE center that provides Parkinson’s care for their community. This award was a philanthropic gift to the Foundation from Acadia.
These awardees have 12 months to complete their projects and report results to the Foundation.
Let’s take a look at the Grant program for 2026. This year, the Foundation was excited to offer three different types of research grants. The general (topic unassigned) grant elicited proposals that could include but were not limited to one of the following: a) new, evidence-based, and actionable guidance and tools specific to PALTC; b) improved care in post-acute and long-term care settings; c) training of competent clinicians in PALTC; and d) optimal methods of adopting and implementing Age-Friendly care in nursing homes. A total of 16 letters of inquiry were received for the general grant category, from which three investigators were invited to submit a full proposal for funding consideration.
For the first time this year, the Foundation offered an award sponsored by Acadia with a focus on Parkinson’s disease (PD). Specific questions of interest in PD included but were not limited to one of the following: a) the impact of PD on daily activities of living and quality of life; b) strategies for management of psychosis of PD (PDP); c) age-friendly approaches to support residents with PD and related symptoms; d) successful models of deprescribing medications with anticholinergic properties in residents with PD and related symptoms; and e) facility models of care for residents with PD and related symptoms. Two letters of inquiry were received, and one investigator was invited to submit a full proposal in consideration for funding.
Neurocrine provided support to the Foundation for a grant award focused on tardive dyskinesia (TD) that could focus on one of the following: a) the impact of TD on daily activities of living and quality of life; b) characteristics of treatment naïve TD and their impact on residents of LTC facilities; c) management strategies for nursing home residents with TD; d) age-friendly approaches to support nursing home residents with TD; or e) the impact of properly conducted Abnormal Involuntary Movement scale (AIMs) testing in NH residents with TD. The grant could support identification, screening, assessing impact / burden of TD, but not pharmacologic treatment or comparison of pharmacologic treatments. One letter of inquiry and full proposal was received and is undergoing review.
The Foundation Grant Committee, chaired by Sarah Holmes, PhD, MSW, was excited to receive the large number of high-quality submissions for possible funding. Dr. Holmes stated, “We are delighted to have so many high-quality proposals to consider for funding. The strong response reflects the growing interest in advancing quality improvement and building the evidence base in post-acute and long-term care. PALTmed is very fortunate to have investigators committed to this important work.”
Eligibility to receive a Foundation-funded grant is not limited to PALTmed members or full-time researchers. In fact, one of the Foundation’s goals is to encourage, train, and support medical directors and other nursing home staff in the research process. And, when the generation of empirical evidence through research does not align with the interests of the facility team, perhaps they are working on a quality assessment and improvement project (QAPI) that could be funded through the research grant process. Additional funding for QAPI projects can be particularly useful when extensive data collection and analysis are needed, or additional support staff is needed to conduct the QAPI project.
Each year, the grant cycle begins in January with a call for proposals due in April. The Letters of Inquiry are reviewed by the Grant Committee, and investigators of proposals meeting criteria are invited to submit a full proposal for funding consideration. Proposals are reviewed in July, and awardees receive funding in September. The grant process is in its 5th year.
Support for the Foundation’s grant program comes from member donations and philanthropy. When you make a donation to the Foundation, you can elect to support research in the designation of funds that will help to sustain the emergence of new knowledge and the Foundation’s grant program.
Barbara J. Zarowitz is senior advisor to the Peter Lamy Center on Drug Therapy and Aging and affiliate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She serves the Foundation and PALTmed as the editor-in-chief of Caring for the Ages.