Business Leader Lipitz Creates Health Care Center at Hopkins

Post-acute care covers a range of needs. It can help a youngster disabled by a head injury or an elderly person recovering from a stroke. Post-acute care also includes treatments to return a person to full function, prevent further disability, or provide comfort-only measures.

"Roger Lipitz's extraordinary generosity will enable Hopkins to help shape the future of post-acute care policy and management in Maryland and beyond," said Alfred Sommer, dean, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "As inpatient treatment is curtailed, post-acute care accounts for an increasing proportion of health care services and dollars, yet we lack coherent and informed policies in this area."

Mr. Lipitz said, "There is very little research on the cost and quality of post-acute care, especially compared with other areas of health care. We have a lot of anecdotal information, but very little data to help us understand, for example, how to compare the costs and the quality of life in assisted living versus nursing home care." He added, "The solutions facing people who need post-acute care are becoming more and more complex. I want to make sure that policies in the future will be based on facts, not emotions." An advisory committee made up of academia and public and private sector experts will be established to counsel the Center about areas of research.

The Lipitz Center and Professorship will address the challenges of how to integrate and coordinate services from acute hospital care to long-term care and self care. "Attacking these problems will help prevent patients--particularly those needing long-term care--from falling through the cracks as they move from one level of care to another," said Donald Steinwachs, chair, department of Health Policy and Management at the School, where the Center will be housed.

Massive changes in both the demographics of those who need post-acute care and in the nature of the health care delivery system in this country have created a rising demand for post-acute care. As the population ages, and more people live longer, the proportion of those in long-term care will increase. In addition, the need for post-acute care has been fueled by a continuing decline in inpatient services with a concomitant increase in outpatient care.

Mr. Lipitz chose to name the professorship after his parents, Eugene and Mildred Lipitz. The Lipitz Professor will direct the new Center and will serve on the faculty of the Department.

After Mr. Lipitz co-founded Meridian Healthcare in 1969, the company became Maryland's largest provider of nursing home and related services before it was sold to Genesis Eldercare in 1993. Chairman of the Baltimore Development Corporation since 1995, he serves on the boards of CareFirst Inc., and Genesis, as well as the School of Public Health's Advisory Board. He is a past president of the American Health Care Association and formerly chaired the board of the University of Maryland Medical System.

Shale Stiller, chairman of the School of Public Health Advisory Board, said, "Roger has always been at the cutting edge of everything with which he has been involved. This gift is characteristic of Roger, because it establishes an important new program on the cutting edge of h ealth care in the United States."

The Lipitz Professor and Center will build on work already under way at the School and will collaborate with researchers at the Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Nursing.

The Lipitz gift will count toward the Johns Hopkins Initiative, the fund-raising campaign for The Johns Hopkins Institutions that was publicly announced in 1994. The campaign passed its initial goal of $900 million earlier this year, nearly two years ahead of schedule. The University's trustees voted last month to raise the target to $1.2 billion.

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