Betty Kramer
Ph.D.
Ph.D. Program ChairProfessor; Ph.D., University of Washington, 1992. Interests: aging; Alzheimer's disease; family caregiver well-being, grief, loss and bereavement; palliative and end-of-life care. Current research: innovations in end-of-life care for elders with advanced chronic disease, impact of end-of-life care quality and experience on family; family conflict at the end-of-life, and transitions in the caregiving career. Contact InformationUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison - Social Work
210 School of Social Work
1350 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: 263-3830
Fax: 263-3836
Email: ejkramer@wisc.edu EducationSouthern Illinois University, BSW, 1981
University of Louisville, MSSW, 1987
University of Washington, Ph.D., Social Welfare, 1992 Research InterestsProfessor Kramer?s research has strengthened understanding of male caregivers, caregiving gains, transitions in the caregiving career, and the distinctive nature of end-of-life caregiving. She co-edited a volume entitled Men as Caregivers: Theory, Research, and Service Implications (2002), and has recently completed with Nancy Hooyman, the first evidence-based textbook to profile grief and bereavement interventions for human service professionals entitled Living through Loss: Interventions across the Life-Span (2006). With her colleagues she has put forth competencies and a national research agenda for social work research in palliative and end-of-life care. As the recipient of two national awards, the John A. Hartford Foundation Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar Award and the Project on Death in America Social Work Leadership Development Award, Dr. Kramer has received support to implement several projects relevant to improving palliative care. Her research has documented insufficiencies in end-of-life care in leading social work textbooks, and she has more recently studied innovations in care for frail low-income elders with advanced chronic disease; addressing topics such as family conflict, the role of the social worker, challenges and solutions in providing quality care, and incongruence in care preferences among elders and family members. She is currently assessing the feasibility of integrating hospice consultation to improve the provision of palliative care in a managed care setting, and is examining the impact of the quality of end-of-life care provided to persons with lung cancer, on family member psychological and physical well-being.
Her clinical experiences have emerged in multiple settings including hospitals, nursing homes, family practice clinics, and community based social service agencies. She team teaches a course on End of Life care, teaches other graduate social work courses on the topics of grief and loss, and gerontological social work practice, and is a faculty member and mentor of a recently funded National Cancer Institute training grant titled Transdisciplinary Palliative Care Education for social workers, psychologists and chaplains (PI: Shirley Otis-Greene). Recent awards include the Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville; and the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGE-SW) Faculty Achievement Award. Research and Professional SpecialtiesFamily Caregiving
Palliative and End-of-life care
Gerontological Social Work Current Research ProjectsProject Title: Palliative Care for the Frail Elderly: Integration of Hospice with a Partnership Program.
Role on Project: Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: The National Cancer Institute
The purpose of this study is to assess the feasibility of a consultation model, whereby a 25% time hospice nurse (RN) and social worker (SW) were available to provide palliative care consultation to three Elder Care Partnership (ECP) teams for a one year period. The ECP program is an innovative, fully integrated managed care program that provides care to elders with advanced chronic disease. This pilot sought to: (a) determine the extent to and ways in which consultants will be used by the teams; (b) identify the potential benefits and outcomes of consultation from the perspective of the staff, and (c) examine the extent to which consultation will assist ECP team members to enhance perceived success in the provision of palliative care.
Project Title: Innovations in End-of-Life Care for Elders with Advanced Chronic Disease
Role on Project: Principal Investigator
Funding Agency: The John A. Hartford Foundation and The Gerontological Society of America
The study seeks to understand how end of life (EOL) care is provided to frail elders with advanced chronic disease, in an innovative, fully integrated managed care program in which social workers play a key role on an interdisciplinary team. The primary objectives are to: (1) determine how EOL care is defined and implemented; (2) identify the implicit and explicit outcomes of quality EOL care; (3) identify the structures and processes of care that influence these quality EOL outcomes, with attention to the contributions of social work; and (4) identify the care dilemmas, barriers, and helps to providing quality EOL care to elders with advanced chronic disease and their family members.
Project Title: The Quality of Cancer Care in Wisconsin
Role on Project: Investigator; PI Amy Trentham-Dietz
Funding Agency: UW-Madison, Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, and the Wisconsin Partnership Fund for a Health Future (Blue Cross Program).
The goals for the larger Quality of Cancer Care in Wisconsin study are to identify barriers that affect patient satisfaction, quality of life and treatment options in Wisconsin cancer survivors. Dr. Kramer is adding questions to a survey that will be sent to family members of persons who have died, to examine their perceptions of the quality of care provided, and the impact of that care on their current psychological and physical well-being (e.g., complicated grief, depression, health). Selected PublicationsKramer, B. J., Boelk, A., & Auer, C. (2006). Family conflict at the end-of-life: Lessons learned in a model program for vulnerable older adults. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 9, 791-801.
Hooyman, N. R. & Kramer, B. J. (2006). Living through loss: Interventions across the lifespan. Columbia University Press.
Kramer, B. J. & Auer, C. (2005). Challenges to providing end-of-life care to low-income elders with advanced chronic disease: Lessons learned from a model program. The Gerontologist, 45, 651-660.
Kramer, B. J., Christ, G. H., Bern-Klug, M. & Francoeur, R. B. (2005). A national agenda for social work research in palliative and end-of-life care. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 8, 418-431.
Bern-Klug, M., Kramer, B. J., & Linder, J. F. (2005). All Aboard: Advancing the Social Work Research Agenda in End-of-Life Care. Journal of Social Work in End-of-life and Palliative Care, 1(2), 71-86.
Waldrop, D. P., Kramer, B. J., Skrentny, J. A., Milch, R. A., & Finn, W. (2005). Final transitions: Family caregiving at the end of life. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 8, 623-638.
Gwyther, L., Altilio, T., Blacker, S., Christ, G., Csikai, E. L., Hooyman, N., Kramer, B. J., Linton, L. M., Raymer, M., & Howe, J., (2005). Social work competencies in palliative and end-of-life care. Journal of Social Work in End-of-life and Palliative Care, 1, 87-120.
Hauser, J. & Kramer, B. J. (2004) Family caregivers in palliative care. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine: Special Issue on End-of-Life Care, 20, 671-88.
Kramer, B. J., & Bern-Klug, M. (2004). Social work end-of-life research. In J. Berzoff & P. Silverman (Eds.), Living with dying: A handbook for end-of-life healthcare practitioners (pp. 792-814). Columbia University Press.
Kramer, B. J., Pacourek, L., Hovland-Scafe, C. (2003). Analysis of end-of-life content in social work textbooks. Journal of Social Work Education. 39, 299-320.
Kramer, B. J., & Thompson, E. H. (Eds.) (in press). Men as caregivers: Theory, research, and service implications. Springer, Publishers.
Kramer, B. J., & Lambert, J. D. (1999). Caregiving as a life course transition among older husbands: A prospective study. The Gerontologist, 39(6), 658-667.
Kramer, B. J. (1998). Preparing social workers for the inevitable: A preliminary investigation of a course on grief, death, and loss. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 211-227.
Kramer, B. J. (1997). Gain in the caregiving experience: Where are we? What next?The Gerontologist, 37(2), 218-232.
Kramer, B. J. (1997). Differential predictors of strain and gain among husbands caring for wives with dementia. The Gerontologist, 37(2), 239-249.
Kramer, B. J. & Kipnis, S. (1995). Elder care and work role strain: Toward an understanding of gender differences in caregiver burden. The Gerontologist, 35(3), 340-348.
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