The Indiana Public Health Foundation delivered its highest honors to a Wishard program aimed at caring for at-risk patients most in need and to a physician for his research that has resulted in improved memory care for patients and their caregivers.
The Wishard Volunteer Advocates Program and Dr. Malaz Boustani, medical director of the Wishard Healthy Aging Brain Center, earned the 2011 Tony and Mary Hulman Health Achievement Award in the fields of preventive medicine and public health and in health science research respectively.
Dr. Lisa Harris, CEO and medical director of Wishard Health Services, said, “We are grateful to the Indiana Public Health Foundation for honoring the Wishard Volunteer Advocates Program and Dr. Malaz Boustani for their extraordinary work in the field of public health.
“The people who care for our patients are always thinking, ‘There must be even more we can do.’ This recognition highlights the compassion, the concern, the ingenuity, and the resolve that our caregivers demonstrate day in and day out across the broad continuum of Wishard.”
The Wishard Volunteer Advocates Program provides volunteer advocates who are trained as guardians for ill and at-risk adults and seniors at Wishard and other hospitals. The program at Wishard helps address the critical health care, social service, and legal representation needs of the growing population of ill and at-risk incapacitated adults and seniors in Marion County.
Robin Bandy said, “Our volunteers are trained, court-appointed advocates who protect the interests of the patients they serve both while the patients are in the hospital and after they have been transitioned to residential health care facilities or back to the community.” Bandy is director of the Wishard Volunteer Advocates Program and affiliate faculty at the Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics.
Dr. Boustani, associate professor of medicine for the Indiana University School of Medicine, heads the Wishard Healthy Aging Brain Center, which offers a unique team approach to care by evaluating each patient thoroughly to uncover all possible causes of memory problems, and by providing a comprehensive management plan to help both the patient and caregiver.
The center broadens the definition of the term “patient” to include the patient’s caregiver and family. The center also expands the doctor’s office to include doctors, nurses and social workers communicating and working with patients not only at the center but also at the patient’s home.
Dr. Boustani explained that, “The Wishard Healthy Aging Brain Center represents a model of care that is unmatched for older adults who are facing dementia and other memory impairment problems.”
Boustani said, “It brings top memory specialists together in one place making it easier for patients and families to access the appropriate care based on the individual patient.”
The 27th annual Tony and Mary Hulman Health Achievement Awards Program was held recently at the downtown Indianapolis Westin Hotel.
