Week In Review

The Q1 2026 issue of AGSNews is on its way to your mailbox! If you’d like to get an early start, the digital edition is already available to preview on the AGS website. In this issue, you’ll find:

• AGS/ADGAP Benchmarking Survey Update
• CMS’s New Age-Friendly Hospital Measure & AGS CoCare®: HELP
• AGS 360 with Nancy E. Lundebjerg, MPA
• From the President by Dr. Paul Mulhausen
• 2025 Honor Roll of Giving
• A Guide to Getting the Most out of the #AGS26 Virtual Scientific Meeting
• A Member Profile of Angela Beckert, MD

And much more…

Be sure to check it out here!

The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, in collaboration with AGS and a number of other organizations, have released a comprehensive new guideline on managing dyslipidemia, offering updated, evidence-based recommendations to reduce cardiovascular risk across the lifespan. The guideline retires and replaces the 2018 Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol and emphasizes earlier intervention through healthy lifestyle changes and early consideration of pharmacotherapy in certain individuals. A summary of the guidelines is available on the American College of Cardiology’s website here. The full guidelines have been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology here.

We are excited to announce that University Medical Center has achieved Recognized AGS CoCare®: HELP Site status! The University Medical Center, UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas has been successfully implementing the Hospital Elder Life Program model since 2023 and has demonstrated innovation and success in their program. AGS CoCare®: HELP Site Recognition is granted to institutions who have demonstrated a commitment to the AGS CoCare®: HELP program and have excelled in carrying out the protocols to improve the care for hospitalized older patients. Congratulations to the University Medical Center team on this achievement!

For a full list of AGS CoCare®: HELP recognized Sites click here. For a full list of AGS CoCare®: HELP recognized Centers of Excellence click here.

Want to learn more about implementing AGS CoCare®: HELP? Visit us at help.agscocare.org or email us at cocarehelp@americangeriatrics.org.

The AGS Resident Activities Subcommittee is once again coordinating a poster session competition at the AGS Annual Meeting and is currently seeking poster judges to celebrate the research of trainees in geriatrics.

If selected as a poster judge, you can expect an assignment of about 5-6 posters. Poster judges will be able to access these posters on the annual meeting platform at any time during the meeting, and during the poster session (Fri., May 1, 2:45-3:45pm ET), and will be able to use the chat feature to ask the residents follow-up questions about their presentations. You will submit an online score sheet for each poster you judge (typically takes less than 10 minutes to complete). We will send you the score sheet link when your posters are assigned.

If you are attending #AGS26 and interested in being a poster judge, please email Ashley Evans at aevans@americangeriatrics.org with your name, preferred email, title, and institution name by Friday, April 10th.

The AGS Annual Scientific Meeting is fast approaching! Join us virtually from April 30 - May 2 (pre-conference days: Monday, April 27th - Wednesday, April 29th) for the premiere event in geriatrics. 

Don’t miss your chance to connect and learn at #AGS26 and potentially win a free registration for the 2027 meeting as well. Register on or before March 31st and you will be entered for a chance to win! Register Today!

Join us for the #AGS26 Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting and take part in highly anticipated sessions like the Henderson State-of-the Art Lecture! Learn more about this highly anticipated session below.

• Henderson State-of-the-Art Lecture: Pharmacotherapy for Older Adults: A Historical and Futuristic Look at Progress (4/30; 2:30-3:30pm)

Todd Semla MS, PharmD, FCCP, AGSF will chronicle the progress in pharmacotherapy for older adults during this Henderson State-of-the Art Lecture. Starting with the 1968 Task Force on Prescription Drug Use, the U.S. government’s first ever report on prescription drug use by older adults, Dr. Semla will walk us through the many advances in pharmacology, interventions to improve medication use, and the expanded roles and responsibilities of pharmacists. Lastly, a look to the future, and what might be possible.

Apply to be on the Editorial Board of JAGS. 

Being an editorial board member is an opportunity to engage in the selection and guidance of cutting-edge research and scholarship for the leading clinical Geriatrics journal. The primary role of editorial board members is to provide at least 6 high quality timely reviews per year. Detailed expectations of editorial board members are below. Applicants should meet the following qualifications:

• Reviewed for JAGS at least 3 times in the last 12 months
• Reviews are of high quality
• Academic faculty at the Instructor, Assistant, Associate, or Professor level
• Member of the American Geriatrics Society

Though applicants with expertise in all areas of geriatrics and gerontology will be considered, candidates who will provide exemplary reviews in the following areas are encouraged to apply:

• General geriatrics, including clinical trials and implementation studies
• Cognitive impairment and dementia
• Social well-being and social determinants of health
• Depression and other mental health issues
• Abuse and self-neglect
• Frailty
• Applied and translational geroscience
• Health services research
• Prescribing in older adults

Applicants from backgrounds that are traditionally under-represented in medicine are welcome and also strongly encouraged to apply.

To apply, please send the following via email to JAGS Managing Editor, Kylie Bade, at jagseditorialoffice@wiley.com

• A paragraph on why you are qualified and your motivation for joining the JAGS editorial board. Please also include one suggestion on how to make JAGS the best clinical geriatrics journal it can be.  Please also include a few brief sentences describing how you contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion and how you can enhance these values while on the editorial board.
• Your NIH biosketch or CV

This call for applications will be open until March 23.

The New York Times recently published an article featuring AGS Board Chair Mark Supiano, MD, AGSF entitled "'How Low Can You Go?' The Shifting Guideline for Blood Pressure Control." The article explores the evolving knowledge-base and recommendations in hypertension management, weaving in real-world stories from experts like Dr. Supiano, while also noting the potential cognitive benefits of effective treatment. Read it here.  

The AGS Beers Criteria was cited as "the gold standard list of medications that are potentially inappropriate for older adults" in this article about 5 common medications that might be worth throwing out from your medicine cabinet published by the Washington Post. 

The AGS Opportunities for Investigators resource serves as a central location for geriatrics and aging-related opportunities such as grant funding, presentation or publication submissions, travel stipends for scholarly meetings, networking events, comment periods, and in-person or virtual meetings and webinars. A few opportunities we'd like to include are:

• The Next STEPs innovative Experiential Learning Program is designed to match interested researchers with nursing homes for an immersive learning experience to help researchers gain insights that will support study design tailored for the realities of the center setting. The program is currently accepting applications for both researchers and nursing home facilities.
• The Network for Investigation of Delirium: Unifying Scientists is accepting applications for the 2026 NIDUS Boot Camp now through April 6th. The over-arching goal of the Boot Camp is developing a multidisciplinary pipeline of well-trained translational, epidemiologic, and clinical delirium researchers.
• The Alzheimer’s Association Center for Dementia Respite Innovation will award up to $20 million in competitive grants to local respite care providers to improve and increase the delivery of person-centered dementia care, with a focus on innovation, collaboration, outcomes, accessibility, affordability and sustainability. Applications are being accepted through April 25th.
• The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) seeks to fund projects that address important methodological gaps and lead to improvements in the strength and quality of evidence generated by CER studies. Applications will be accepted through April 28th. Click here to read the full RFA

The MyAGSOnline Events Calendar is a valuable resource to discover and register for upcoming events, webinars, and other opportunities. An upcoming events we'd like to highlight is:

• Join Geri-a-FLOAT for their latest webinar, Murder Mystery: A root cause analysis, on Friday, April 3rd at 12pm ET / 9am PT. View all upcoming Geri-a-FLOAT webinars here.

Have an opportunity or event you'd like to see listed? Email the details to Jennifer Fisher at jfisher@americangeriatrics.org