The Leadership & Administrative Core (LAC) will oversee daily operations of the Northwestern Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC), implementing its mission to generate novel research to improve quality of life and independence for older adults with multiple chronic conditions. The LAC will coordinate activities across all OAIC (a.k.a. `Pepper Center') Cores: Research Education (REC), Pilot/Exploratory Studies (PESC), Resources (Design, Measurement, Analytics), Information Dissemination (IDC), as well as bridge to multiple healthcare systems, community, government, academic, and industry partners. Administratively based within Northwestern's Center for Applied Health Research on Aging (CAHRA), our proposed OAIC will be strongly supported by the Department of Medicine, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) and Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute. An External Advisory Board will convene bi- annually to review the progress of our new Pepper Center and provide objective feedback on how we might further expand our impact. We have also intentionally linked the LAC + IDC. The LAC specific aims are to:
Aim 1 Establish the Northwestern Pepper Center and advance an innovative, applied research agenda focused on improving primary care for older adults with MCC.
Aim 2 Expand the Northwestern Pepper Center network of collaborators, and stimulate new research and education opportunities to address current issues related to primary care models for MCC.
Aim 3 Continually monitor and comprehensively evaluate Northwestern Pepper Center activities and its progress towards established goals. The LAC will manage daily operations and external communications, and challenge Northwestern Pepper Center faculty to consider how best to serve the national OAIC Network to uniquely contribute to the science related to geriatrics-informed, primary care management of older adults with MCC to improve function and independence. To do this, LAC faculty and staff will regularly encourage its Cores to collaborate with one another and find new, innovative ways to leverage their expertise and functions in partnerships with the many involved, affiliated external partners, other OAICs, and aging centers. Working with the IDC, the LAC will continually promote and disseminate Center research and its available services, and be responsible for routinely monitoring and reporting on Northwestern's OAIC progress towards clearly defined and measurable Pepper Center goals.
