I have some great news to share today: Eric A. Coleman, MD, whose career, research, and work have received Hartford Foundation support for more than a decade, is one of 23 MacArthur Fellows named for 2012.

I can think of nobody more deserving of the honor.

In announcing Eric’s selection, which comes with $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years, the MacArthur Foundation hailed Eric’s groundbreaking work in “addressing system-wide deficiencies in patient transitions from hospitals to homes and other sites of care and improving the health outcomes of millions of older adults suffering from chronic illness.”

A former recipient of a Paul B. Beeson Career Development Award in Aging Research, Eric—a geriatrician who is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Health Care Policy and Research at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus—is Director of the Care Transitions Program, which served as a model for the Community Based Care Transitions Program, created by Section 3026 of the Affordable Care Act.

Eric also is Director of the Practice Change Fellows Program, which has had astounding success in developing leaders who spread innovations that improve the health of older adults, as well as the new Practice Change Leaders Program, which my colleague Amy Berman wrote about on Health AGEnda last week.

Both programs are co-funded by the Hartford Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies.

Needless to say, we’re immensely proud of Eric, as we are regarding two other Hartford grantees who have received MacArthur Fellowships in recent years: Diane Meier, MD., FACP, Professor of Geriatrics and Internal Medicine and Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as well as Director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), and Mary Tinetti, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine.

One of the best things about my job here at the Hartford Foundation is being able to work with brilliant people who are making a significant difference in the quality of health care for older Americans. For more than a decade, Eric has been one of the most innovative, effective and compassionate leaders in that quest.

All of us at the Hartford Foundation are thrilled that the MacArthur Foundation has recognized his creativity and accomplishments.