At the recent Grantmakers in Health (GIH) funders forum on health reform, we were privileged to have Atul Gawande as our kick-off speaker. (On the video, Lauren LeRoy, the CEO of GIH, introduces him as a “Rock Star” for the health policy set.) As the brilliant staff writer for The…
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Had you asked me in 1995 if an intervention by a foundation could enhance the visibility and value of academic geriatric nursing, I would have said no. However, the Hartford Foundation’s investment in Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) has done just that. As any regular reader of this blog…
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I’m extraordinarily proud to announce that the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) has nominated Hartford grantee Dr. Carol Farran, DNSc, RN, FAAN, and Dr. Ellen L. Brown, EdD, MS, ARNP, RN, to the roster of Edge Runners in its Raise the Voice campaign. Edge Runners are nurses who lead the…
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One of the knocks on foundation funders is that while we counsel our grantees to work together and to overcome the parochial in favor of mission, we ourselves do poorly at collaboration with others, especially other funders. Collaboration is not easy for anyone, not-for-profit or for-profit, as the booming business…
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Pain can ruin anyone’s quality of life. More than 80 percent of older adults have chronic medical conditions that are typically associated with pain, such as arthritis. Do they have to live with pain? Can it be better controlled? All too often these questions aren’t asked by patients, families, or…
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What do the following people have in common? MacArthur Foundation Fellow Governor Rendell-appointed chair of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Senior Care and Services Study Commission Executive Editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society President-elect of the American Academy of Home Care Physicians Member of the Chicago Wellbeing Task…
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This week’s New England Journal of Medicine contains a fascinating randomized controlled clinical trial of best cancer care, with palliative care versus best cancer care alone, among patients newly diagnosed with stage 3 and 4 non-small-cell lung cancer. The quick version is that combined palliative and best cancer care led…
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One of the persistently nagging challenges of trying to improve health and health care for older Americans is the general public’s refusal to share our belief in this need. We've raised many of the issues in this blog: - Most people are happy with their health care providers and don't…
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A caricature of how philanthropy stimulated social change in “the good old days,” derisively called Philanthropy 1.0, describes the process this way: first, private funding helped successfully develop an innovation; the innovation then gained recognition; and finally the government rushed in to adopt it and take it to scale. (If…
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