Geriatrics and Person Centered Care with Mike Wasserman, Past President of the CALTCM

On this episode of the LTC Heroes podcast, Mike Wasserman, Past
President of the California Association of LTC Medicine, joins us
to share his insights on leadership and person centered care in
the field of geriatrics.
The Field of Geriatrics

Mike explains that the difference between the geriatric approach
to care and traditional primary care is that geriatrics focuses
on the function and quality of life for patients rather than
diagnosis, treatment, and cures. Taking a person centered
approach to care, geriatrics is about truly getting to know a
person in order to figure out what matters most to them with the
time they have left.


Mike touches on the unfortunate fact that the number of
geriatricians has dropped about 50% over the past 20-30 years.
The reasons for this decline include lower pay for geriatricians,
poor reimbursement rates for geriatric care, and medical students
not being given quality exposure to the field while in medical
school.
Leadership Training

Regarding leadership in LTC, Mike says oftentimes when physicians
are put in leadership positions, they haven’t had the training or
don’t understand how to be effective leaders. This is the product
of health systems being stuck in dated approaches to how leaders
are developed.


He also discusses the issue of non-clinically trained
administrators not understanding the consequences of their
choices and how it relates to the overall health of residents.
Mike says clinical leaders and financial leaders need to have an
equal voice within their organizations to truly improve outcomes.


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