Mary Naylor the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology, has been named the Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA) 2015 Doris Schwartz Gerontological Nursing Research Award recipient. The distinguished honor, presented by GSA’s Health Sciences Section and sponsored with the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing, recognizes Dr. Naylor’s outstanding and sustained contribution to geriatric nursing research. She will receive the award at the GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting in November, at which time she will present a special lecture on gerontological nursing research.

Dr. Naylor, along with a multidisciplinary team of Penn colleagues, developed the Transitional Care Model as a solution to make the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled more efficient and cost effective. The model assigns an advanced practice nurse to support patients and their families through critical transitions, such as hospital-to-home. An individual nurse can manage as many as 20 patients at a time over a 60-day period. The model has been proven in multiple NIH-funded randomized clinical trials to significantly improve patients’ experience with care and health, while reducing avoidable re-hospitalizations.