A common complaint about philanthropy is that it lacks the focus and patience to provide sufficient resources over enough time to have a realistic chance of achieving social change. In other words, in the garden of social innovation we are accused of sprinkling our resources too lightly, producing a garden…
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Do you pay for an oil change with your automobile insurance? If not, why do we think it’s reasonable to pay for a primary care visit with health insurance? This is the trenchant core question posed by David Goldhill in his September Atlantic Monthly article, "How American Health Care Killed…
Read full postHealth care reform offers an opportunity for those of us who care about health and aging to improve how public policy affects older adults. That’s why programs like the Health and Aging Policy Fellowship, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, are so important. The program helps mid-career professionals in health and…
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I was recently at a site visit for federal policymakers to Baltimore to learn about the Foundation-sponsored Guided Care project directed by Chad Boult. I’ve already blogged about the trip, highlighting stories of some of the Guided Care patients we met. This time, I want to add some observations inspired…
Read full post(Technorati claim code: u3m879yfek) We were very pleased to see that America’s Healthy Futures Act, the health care reform bill released by the Senate Finance Committee on September 16, 2009, included a provision for a pilot program called the Community Care Transitions program, intended to reduce re-hospitalizations of high-risk patients…
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We’d like to share some terrific news! Mary Tinetti, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine, is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow. Her affiliation with the Foundation and the field of aging is long and deep. She has been the long-time leader of our…
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Recently, we were able to achieve that pinnacle of foundation aspirations--cross-project synergy--when one of our grantees, The National Health Policy Forum at George Washington University, brought its audience of policymaking experts from the major federal agencies to visit another grantee, Guided Care at Johns Hopkins University. It was a timely…
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It is the eighth anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. I am sure everyone remembers the details of that day all too well; yet you may not be aware that after the attacks, hundreds of older and disabled residents living in the high rise apartment buildings of…
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Across many projects and partnerships, the Foundation has come to believe that high quality care for complex older adults MUST be team care. Not only is there far too much work for any one provider, but the nature of the work requires a team to implement successfully. Geriatric care…
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Health Reform has become a national pastime. It’s the hot topic of dinner conversation, top “tweet” in cyberspace, rant-du-jour in the blogosphere, and the focus of our policymakers even as Congress is adjourned. The public debate has focused on three core issues—cost, quality, and access—rarely accompanied by the necessary deeper…
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