September 28 , 2007

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Nova Southeastern University Receives a $426,000 Federal Grant to Create a Geriatric Education Center

Nova Southeastern University (NSU) announced Wednesday it received a $426,000 federal grant to create a Geriatric Education Center (GEC) to educate South Florida health care professionals and students on the interdisciplinary health care needs of the elderly. The interdisciplinary grant was awarded to NSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Another $893,000 will be provided to the GEC pending the availability of federal funds in the next two years.

NSU’s center will be called The Florida Coastal Geriatric Resources, Education and Training Geriatric Education Center (GREAT GEC). It will improve the training of health care professionals in geriatrics and eldercare, instruct NSU faculty who teach geriatrics and provide health care students with clinical geriatrics training in nursing homes, and acute  hospitals, ambulatory care centers and senior centers and retirement communities.

“This grant is huge for NSU and South Florida because there aren’t too many geriatric education centers in the region and throughout the country,” said Naushira Pandya, M.D., CMD, NSU associate professor and chair of the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Department of Geriatrics. “Florida has one of the largest populations of older people in the country.  The percentage of Floridians age 65 and older is the highest in the nation.”

Pandya, who will serve as NSU’s GREAT GEC’s project director, said the center will provide critical training and education and increase interdisciplinary collaboration to better serve the elderly. “As Americans continue to age, the percentage of total time provided by physicians for patient care could increase to 39 percent nationally by 2020,” she said.