Erin E. Emery-Tiburcio, PhD, ABPP, professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Geriatric Medicine at Rush Medical College, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award for the 2024-2025 academic year from the U.S. State Department and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
With this award, Emery-Tiburcio will tailor her training program regarding the 4Ms — What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility — of an Age-Friendly Behavioral Health System to Australian culture, then offer the tailored program to mental health providers across Queensland.
As co-director of the Rush Center for Excellence in Aging, Emery-Tiburcio has helped Rush lead the way in improving the health and well-being of older adults including the medical center’s designation as an Age-Friendly Health System, or AFHS. The medical center was the first in Illinois to receive this achievement.
“The 4Ms framework guides health systems to assess and act on What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility — essential interrelated elements of quality care for older adults,” Emery-Tiburcio explains. “When the 4Ms framework is implemented with older adults annually, or at change of status, such as following a hospitalization or change in living arrangement, health systems have seen improvements in length of stay, readmission rates, patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment plans.”
Emery-Tiburcio has created a version of the 4Ms designed around behavioral health. 4Ms Behavioral Health provides a flexible framework for generalist clinicians with little to no geriatrics training to effectively assess and act on the unique behavioral health needs of older adults. The 4M-BH framework was first pilot-tested in the United States and will be the model Emery-Tiburcio will take to Australia.
Emery-Tiburcio has helped Rush lead the way in improving the health and well-being of older adults including the medical center’s designation as an Age-Friendly Health System, or AFHS. The medical center was the first in Illinois to receive this achievement.
While in Australia, Emery-Tiburcio will engage in focus groups and interviews with diverse older Australians and their families, as well as health care providers and administrators, to better understand perceptions of aging, mental health and the Australian health care system. Collaborating with Dr. Nancy Pachana at the University of Queensland, she will then examine outcomes of the training and develop a train-the-trainer program to spread this critical education about meeting the needs of older adults across Australia.
Emery-Tiburcio hopes this will be the start of a long and fruitful international collaboration, and perhaps the foundation for further cultural tailoring in other countries.
“In the process of culturally adapting the 4Ms – Behavioral Health framework for Australians, I look forward to learning from both health care providers and older Australians about the meaning of aging, overall health and mental health in the culture, as well as concepts of health intervention,” Emery-Tiburcio says. “As colonization has impacted Aboriginal and Māori older adults, I am particularly interested in comparing their experience to that of Native American older adults and their health care providers. I have already begun building relationships with academics and health care professionals in Australia and New Zealand and look forward to developing these into longstanding collaborations.”
Fulbright U.S. Scholars are faculty, researchers, administrators and established professionals teaching or conducting research in affiliation with institutes abroad. Fulbright Scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions. Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs and classrooms, they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad.
“I am extremely proud of Professor Emery-Tiburcio as she embarks on this research project in Australia,” says Cynthia Brincat, MD, PhD, acting dean of Rush Medical College. “The Fulbright Scholar program is a prestigious honor, and we are excited to learn about the stories, knowledge and new findings she brings back from this endeavor.”