Dr. James Harrison is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. James is a researcher and implementation scientist who uses patient engagement to improve the hospital care transitions of older adults. His vision is to transform health systems so that older adults are at the center of innovation discovery. He seeks to develop and implement care transition interventions that bring the patient voice to the forefront which are then sustained in real-world clinical settings. James also has a leadership role within UCSF Health’s Age Friendly Health System where he is Research Director. In this role he seeks to build capacity and research infrastructure that catalyzes the dissemination of research evidence that improves the engagement, outcomes, experiences, equity, and dignity of older adults within health systems. 

James is currently a recipient of a NIA K01 Career Development Award where he is undertaking a program of work seeking to improve the hospital to skilled nursing facility care transition of older adults. Prior to this, he was an inaugural scholar of a Learning Health System K12 Career Development Program funded by the AHRQ and PCORI. His work in this program focused on creating age-friendly care transitions using telehealth technologies. 

Dr. Edith Burns has been Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell since 2019. She serves as Director of Research for the Division and was former Program Director for the Geriatrics Fellowship. She was Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) from 1998-2018 and remains an Adjunct Professor of Medicine on their faculty. Her work and experience over the past 35 years has spanned clinical and bench research, education and training, and clinical care. Her research has focused predominantly on older adult populations but has also encompassed younger adults and children as caregivers, and issues of women’s health and disparities in minority populations. All of her work incorporates patient, family and provider perceptions and expectations for disease and treatment outcomes, and the influence of moderating factors (e.g., cultural background, social media, etc.) on adherence to treatment, health outcomes and quality of life among older adults. 

Dr. Burns has become involved in assessing the impact of the Age Friendly Health System initiative on patient outcomes since joining Northwell, how age-friendly care incorporates patient/family illness perceptions to impact patient outcomes, and approaches to adapting and disseminating processes throughout a large integrated health care organization.

Dr. Elizabeth Eckstrom is Professor and Chief of Geriatrics in the Division of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Her research focuses on the 4Ms of Age Friendly Health System (AFHS). Elizabeth has combined her work across the 4Ms to lead all 12 OHSU ambulatory care sites to receive Committed to Care Excellence-level status through IHI, as well as multiple inpatient services. In 2021, her team published a paper on identifying disparities in receipt of age-friendly care across our health care system, and we are now working to reduce these disparities. In addition, she is Director of Integrating Special Populations for the Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute and has led a project to train non-aging trained research teams in Age Friendly Research. This work is ongoing, and Elizabeth is happy to share/present to other institutions who are working to ensure all their research teams are able to include older adults in research on health conditions relevant to them.