There is something about a Grand Challenge—from climbing Mount Everest to sending a manned mission to the moon to conquering polio—that stirs the imagination and inspires our best efforts. So I’m thrilled that the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW) is engaging the public in helping to…
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In the world of philanthropy, there are only a handful of foundations focusing on aging and even fewer on aging and health issues. Five years ago, The SCAN Foundation—an independent private foundation created by, but independent of, The SCAN Health Plan in Long Beach, Calif.,—was born. Over the years, they…
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As we enter 2014, the topic of health care costs continues to be a major topic of conversation in the media and among policy makers. The topic is complex and can be spun in different ways. You may have seen the recent news about how growth in health care spending…
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While we can all see problems in the care of older adults all around us in both our personal and professional lives, figuring out how to deliver better care at a lower cost is not easy. The John A. Hartford Foundation has been working on demonstration programs for many years…
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Change is hard. It takes leadership to drive change. Robert Jarvik—a former John A. Hartford Foundation grantee and inventor of the artificial heart—once said, “Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.” Today’s successful leaders need that same vision, but…
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Happy Boxing Day! This holiday season we got an unexpected gift in geriatric medicine. One of the most easily counted indicators of the success of geriatrics in medical education is the number of graduating resident physicians choosing additional training in geriatric fellowship programs. Each year, the Journal of the American…
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Ok. We did it. We collectively put Chris Langston’s “What-if-we-have-a-party-and nobody-shows” fears to bed. We had hoped for 200 attendees at our launch of the Change AGEnts Initiative at the Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA) annual meeting last month. Huzzah! Close to 400 Change AGEnts showed and actively participated in…
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In health care for older adults (and for everyone really), we know where we want to end up. It gets articulated in different ways, but generally speaking I think we can all agree we want care for our older loved ones that is coordinated, comprehensive, continuous, and geriatrically expert. But…
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As part of our Tools You Can Use series, we like to feature new products and resources that improve the health of older Americans. In this installment, two researchers share a free toolkit that provides evidence-based resources for staff in senior living communities promoting non-pharmacologic strategies to address behavioral and…
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Our most recent annual report celebrated the John A. Hartford Foundation’s 30-year commitment to improving the health of older adults. As part of the online, interactive version of the report, we asked some of our long-time grantees to help us tell the Foundation’s story by sharing short and sweet video…
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