Grant to help foster relationships with patients

Thanks to a $2-million grant, UCI researchers will team up with two other universities to study how to better improve doctors’ relationships with their eldest patients, school officials announced Thursday.

In a four-year grant through the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, UCI will integrate geriatric principles into the university’s school of medicine. The departments, ranging from anesthesiology, perioperative care to family medicine, will incorporate geriatrics education into their training to improve the doctor-patient relationship.

The grant will fund the development of a protocol that focuses on clear communication between a person and his or her doctor. UCI’s lead researcher, Dr. Laura Mosqueda, and her team will collaborate with the University of Arizona on implementing improvements related to health literacy and with Vanderbilt University on creating a database to track the new curriculum’s results. Outcomes will be recorded in a national database medical schools countrywide can use.

— Joseph Serna