As of this writing, the thoughts of everyone at The John A. Hartford Foundation and its Board of Trustees are centered especially on older adults and others at the highest risk because of COVID-19, as well as the valiant health care providers who are working to care for us all. We are committed to helping our grantees and partners through this public health crisis, and we remain confident that we as a community have the ingenuity and perseverance that will lead us through. Nothing will stand in the way of our mission to do what matters and ensure older adults receive the best care possible.
Doing what matters is at the heart of The John A. Hartford Foundation’s work.
Through a series of focused, fast-paced initiatives, we’re helping more people and organizations improve care for older adults and their families. We’re showing hospitals and health care systems how to design age-friendly approaches to care that start with asking and acting on what matters to patients. We’re supporting family caregivers by improving their support systems, so that they can focus on what matters. We’re improving care for people facing serious illness when what matters to them is often misunderstood.
Our philosophy rests upon doing what matters—improving the care of older adults by developing creative and practical solutions, collaborating with experts and influential organizations, and spreading the evidence-based care that we know works.
Over the past year, we have much to show for it:
- Our Age-Friendly Health Systems movement has grown and attracted well-deserved national attention.
- With our grant support, the American Hospital Association launched its seven-month Action Community of 185 teams and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement officially recognized 265 hospitals, practices, and post-acute and long term care communities for their documentation of age-friendly care using the 4Ms framework. Nearly 400 health care teams engaged in the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative in all 50 states last year.
- We worked with two advisory committees to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which resulted in their recommendations to incorporate the Age-Friendly Health Systems framework into federal programs on rural health care and workforce development.
- Our grantee and funder partners released videos about age-friendly care and guides on the business case and electronic health record integration.
- We partnered with AARP to release follow-up findings to the groundbreaking Home Alone report, which continues to sound the alarm that half of family caregivers are performing complex medical and nursing tasks with little support, while highlighting important distinctions among multicultural caregivers.
- Our long-term support of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) has resulted in access to better serious illness care. Hospitals offering palliative care programs have grown 10-fold, from seven percent in 2001 to 72 percent of hospitals in 2019. CAPC is now focusing on making palliative care more available through primary care and in the home, and by ensuring all clinicians have the basic skills they need to provide high-quality serious illness care.
- A national survey we sponsored with WebMD found that three in four older adults are not aware that they have the right to ask for, and receive, age-friendly health care. This underscores the urgency of our ongoing efforts to raise awareness with consumers.
- This past year, we also welcomed Liam Donohue, co-founder and managing partner of .406 Ventures, as the newest member of our Board of Trustees. Our work benefits from his experience identifying and investing in innovative health care companies.
Sincerely,
Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN
President
Margaret L. Wolff