We are very pleased to present The John A. Hartford Foundation 2016 Annual Report. While the report, available as a PDF, highlights the Foundation’s achievements and important grants made over the past year, it is really about the future.

Under the leadership of JAHF President Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Board of Trustees Chair Peggy Wolff, the Foundation has honed its strategic focus on three intrinsically interconnected areas: Age-Friendly Health Systems, Family Caregiving, and Serious Illness and End of Life. As the report explains, each of these are areas where significant gaps now exist in the care received by older adults and where research and evidence-based programs offer the potential for large-scale improvements.

Helping health systems become more age-friendly is a reimagining of how care should be delivered so that older adults are protected from harm and receive the best care possible in every setting, from the home to the hospital to the skilled nursing facility. A signature Age-Friendly Health Systems grant initiative and a host of other grant projects are supporting this vision. We also believe that to be age-friendly, our health care systems must better meet the needs of family caregivers and improve care for the especially vulnerable older adults who are facing serious illness or the end of life. You will find detailed discussions on the strategic vision guiding the Foundation’s work in each of these areas in the Introduction section of the report.

You will also find in-depth features on two Foundation initiatives, one that looks forward and one that looks back at one of our historical programs that makes our current work possible. First we describe the profound impact that the Foundation’s Legacy Nursing Initiative continues to have on the field of geriatric nursing. Second, we present the critical work now under way in our Serious Illness and End of Life area. The Foundation’s convening capabilities were instrumental in shaping a $3.5 million initiative to bring together a “dream team” of innovators who are working cooperatively to greatly expand access to quality care for people with serious illness and at the end of life.

The editorial section of the report concludes with an essay on the Foundation’s vision for the future. It is titled “Reimagining Care for Older Adults” and we urge you to take a few minutes to read it. It clearly articulates what drives our staff, partners, and grantees: “The Foundation’s vision is a society that honors, respects, and values older adults, and a health care system that does the same while providing the highest quality of care possible.”

We hope you find this annual report informative and perhaps even inspiring. And we look forward to working together to build the momentum needed to make that vision a reality.