Editor’s note: As part of the 40th anniversary of McKnight’s, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News are recognizing 40 notable newsmakers. Each week, the brands will highlight a new, high-profile leader from the past four decades. Previously published installments of the series are posted here.
Numerous top-flight academic researchers delve into nursing home care and policy, but few, if any, approach the track record of Vince Mor.
Currently a professor of health services, policy and practice and the Florence Pirce Grant University Professor in the Brown University School of Public Health, Mor has been the principal investigator of more than 40 National Institutes of Health-funded grants during his 40 years at the university.
His vast impact on federal standards is directly reflected in the many academic and professional honors he has received.
One of the fathers of the Minimum Data Set Resident Assessment Instrument, he currently is undertaking a massive study coordinated with other Ivy League researchers on the effect of Medicaid policies. A developer of federal quality standards for nursing homes, he also is considered an expert on hospitalizations analysis, cancer care, and age and racial discrimination in care treatments.
For Mor, who holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University, it always has been about making data more readily accessible and improving industry standards.
“Vince is a rock star,” said Steven Littlehale, a nationally respected gerontological nurse specialist who is among the dozens of top-flight long-term care professionals who call Mor a mentor. “He has a unique ability to translate scientific insights into interdisciplinary practical change that shapes policy.”
Most recently, Mor also has been a widely quoted researcher and expert on COVID-19 and nursing homes.
One of his more ambitious ongoing projects will test and evaluate interventions for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. He and long-time collaborator Susan Mitchell, M.D., MPH, of Hebrew SeniorLife received a five-year grant from the National Institute on Aging worth $53.4 million for it. Aimed at “revolutionizing” Alzheimer’s care, It is one of the largest federal grants ever awarded for Alzheimer’s care.
In 2014, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living donated $1 million to team with Mor’s Brown School of Public Health to create the Long Term Care Quality and Innovation Center at the university.
“His enthusiasm is infectious and his analytic understanding of data is amazing,” David Gifford, M.D., AHCA/NCAL’s quality chief and a protege of Mor’s, told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News in 2014. “He’s moving so fast. He’s always thinking long-term.”
