UCSF Department Of Medicine | Division of Geriatrics

Seth Landefeld is an internist and geriatrician. He is Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Geriatrics, and Associate Chair for Strategic Planning and Implementation in the Department of Medicine, all at UCSF. He also directs the UCSF John A. Hartford Foundation Center of Excellence in Geriatrics and the UCSF/Mt. Zion Center on Aging and serves as a staff physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. He serves on the AGS and ADGAP Boards of Directors and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. Dr. Landefeld received the 2011 Robert J. Glaser Award, the highest award of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Landefeld is committed to work that will transform and personalize health care to meet the needs of older Americans and their families in this Aging Century, a century that will be dominated by the medical and social issues of the aging global population.

Dr. Landefeld's work aims to improve health care for older people with serious illness. He has built and led clinical, educational, research, and faculty development programs focused on this goal. In his research, he has used two therapies as model problems in improving health care, anticoagulant therapy and acute hospitalization. In a series of studies, Dr. Landefeld developed new methods of outcome measurement, prognostic risk stratification, and prevention of adverse events to improve the outcomes of anticoagulant therapy. In a second line of investigation, he and his colleagues studied the functional outcomes of acutely ill, hospitalized older persons. This work led to the invention, evaluation, and widespread dissemination of Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Units.

In other work, Dr. Landefeld and his colleagues have developed methods to estimate the prognosis of chronic disease and to evaluate the outcomes of care and addressed fundamental issues of professional life and behavior for physicians.

Improving Health Care for Older People

Landefeld CS, Palmer RM, Kresevic D, Fortinsky RH, Kowal J. A randomized trial of care in a hospital medical unit especially designed to improve the functional outcomes of acutely ill older patients. N Engl J Med 1995; 332:1338-1344.
Beyth RJ, Quinn L, Landefeld CS. A multicomponent intervention to prevent major bleeding complications in older patients receiving warfarin. A randomized, controlled trial. Ann Intern Med. 2000; 133: 687-95.
Counsell SR, Holder CM, Liebenauer LL, Palmer RM, Fortinsky RH, Kresevic DM, Quinn LM, Allen KR, Covinsky KE, Landefeld CS. Effects of a multicomponent intervention on functional outcomes and process of care in hospitalized older patients: a randomized controlled trial of Acute Care for Elders (ACE) in a community hospital. J Am Geriatr Soc 2000; 48:1572-81.

Landefeld CS, Bowers BJ, Feld AD, Hartmann KE, Hoffman E, Ingber MJ, King JT, McDougal WS, Nelson H, Orav EJ, Pignone M, Richardson LH, Rohrbaugh RM, Siebens HC, Trock BJ. National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science Statement: Prevention of fecal and urinary incontinence in adults. Ann Intern Med 2008; 148: 449-58.
Mehta KM, Pierluissi, E, Boscardin WJ, Kirby KA, Walter LC, Chren MM, Palmer RM, Counsell SR, Landefeld CS. A Clinical Index to Stratify Hospitalized Older Patients according to Risk for New-Onset Disability. J Am Geriatr Soc 2011; in press.

Informing Health Policy

Chren MM, Landefeld CS, Murray TH. Doctors, drug companies, and gifts. JAMA 1989; 262:3448-3451.
Chren MM, Landefeld CS. Physicians' behavior and their interactions with drug companies; A controlled study of physicians who requested additions to a hospital drug formulary. JAMA 1994; 271:684-689.
Norris SL, High K, Gill TM, Hennessy S, Kutner JS, Reuben DB, Unutzer J, Landefeld CS. Health care for Older Americans with multiple chronic conditions: a research agenda. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2008; 56: 149-59.
Landefeld CS, Shojania KG, Auerbach AD. Should we undertake large scale healthcare interventions without clear evidence that benefits outweigh costs and harms? No. BMJ 2008; 336:1277.
Landefeld CS, Steinman M. The Neurontin™ Legacy: Marketing through Misinformation and Manipulation. N Engl J Med; 2009: 360:103-6.
Landefeld CS, Winker MA, Chernof B. Clinical Care in the Aging Century: Announcing "Care of the Aging Patient: From Evidence to Action." JAMA 2009; 302: 2703-4.