By Dr. Jakub Tolar, dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN
In a time when access to quality healthcare in Greater Minnesota is more challenging than ever, it seems life would be simpler if the adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” were a good substitute for our healthcare needs. Unfortunately, staying healthy as we age is not that simple.
Nationwide, medical costs are rising. The healthcare industry is facing unprecedented worker shortages, creating an acute challenge for older adults who already face barriers to quality health services, particularly in small and rural communities.
Adults ages 65 and older make up 17% of Minnesota’s population, and by 2038, it’s expected older adults will make up one-in-five Minnesotans. In rural Minnesota, roughly one in four people are older adults.
Without considerable investment and innovation in the state’s healthcare systems, the access to care for seniors will experience further stress. Indeed the time for that investment is now.
I call on Minnesota legislators and Gov. Walz to support the UMN Health proposal and the University of Minnesota —Minnesota’s one land-grant university and academic health entity that stands ready in service to One Minnesota.
State and university partnerships have delivered proven results before, particularly for Minnesota’s aging population. Thanks to University of Minnesota Medical Discovery Team investments nearly a decade ago, our Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (iBAM) focuses on a simple concept: For years, healthcare providers and researchers have managed disease risk factors, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure, but ignored the greatest risk factor for disease — old age.
By targeting aging, our world-class researchers and clinicians seek groundbreaking treatments to expand the period of good health we all will hopefully enjoy as we age. This team was crucial to discovering senolytics, a new class of drugs that selectively kill damaged, inflammatory senescent cells, which drive age-related diseases and aging. Senolytics are already being tested in dozens of clinical trials.
UMN researchers are also shortening the time for treatments between the research lab and the pharmacy window. The drug development process is notoriously lengthy — typically 10 years or more from inception to market— but iBAM’s collaborative model across colleges, departments and centers on all U of M campuses is more quickly getting life-changing medications to our aging family, friends and community members.
Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota Legislature had the foresight to invest in Medical Discovery Teams at the U of M, enhancing our capacity to attract and retain world-class faculty, staff, students and residents. As the University trains 70% of Minnesota’s physicians, an even greater percentage of the state’s dentists and pharmacists, and many nurses and other health care professionals, those investments are important to all of us.
Many of these individuals learn and research together in new ways in the University’s Biomedical Discovery District — a complex of buildings on the Twin Cities campus that enable researchers from across the University’s health sciences to work side by side. The District was the result of a major public/private partnership approved by legislators and supported by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Ultimately, providing equitable and effective healthcare for older adults may not be as easy as an apple a day, but there is good news. The problems we face have solutions, and the University of Minnesota, in continued partnership with state leaders, is ready to lead once again.
An investment in UMN Health
will set us on our way.
The Trust Project
