Dr. Tom Edes joins C-TAC as our Senior Medical Advisor. Dr. Edes was most recently the Senior Medical Advisor to the Office of Geriatrics & Extended Care with the Department for Veterans Affairs. Recently retired after 40+ years of service to the VA, we celebrate Dr. Edes’ dedication to improving the quality of life for our country’s Veterans. Highlights of his extraordinary work include:
- Increasing access to Home-Based Primary Care, along with mental health support, to all VA Medical Centers and Outpatient Clinics, growing from 7,500 Veterans served each day in 2000 to more than 30,000 today
- Establishing funding and greater access to Hospice within the VA, growing from 5% to nearly 40% of Veterans enrolled in the program; and VA inpatient palliative care rose from 22% in 2004 to 77% in 2016
- Championing Medical Foster Homes, which scaled from a pilot in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2002 to serving 1,000 Veterans a day in 2016, improving the quality of life of Veterans while saving taxpayers $1 million every 9 days
- Co-leading a 3 year transformation of urgent and emergency care of older Veterans, resulting in the majority of the VA’s Emergency Departments earning accreditation as Geriatric Emergency Departments
In 2008, Dr Edes was co-recipient of the Rosalynn Carter Institute’s Leadership in Caregiving Award. Dr Edes has authored numerous articles on improving care for older adults and continues to advocate for the VA as critical leader in innovation in healthcare.
