This summer, I was thrilled to join The John A. Hartford Foundation (JAHF) team as a Program Officer. The organization’s founding directive is to do the greatest good for the greatest number, and for the last 30 years that has meant improving the care of older adults. I moved across the country from Tucson, AZ where I served in a variety of roles in health care, always with a focus on the most vulnerable and underserved populations. Coming to JAHF now feels like I’m closing the circle to embrace, support, and foster the advancement of the very best evidence-based models of care alongside the experts in the field of health and aging.

My journey through the health care sphere – public health, the delivery system, managed care, and now philanthropy – began three decades ago in local public health working with the Pima County Women, Infant, and Children’s program. I advised pregnant and postpartum women on healthy pregnancy and child development. This experience led me to home-based family support and preservation work aimed at alleviating the effects of trauma on families.

After completing a master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Arizona, I entered the world of health care delivery, working with two Federally Qualified Health Centers to develop a number of care improvement programs. These programs included two historically overlooked areas that have a major impact on the well-being of older adults and connect to JAHF’s past work in integrated behavioral health and oral health care.

I became involved in managed care around the time of the arrival of the Affordable Care Act when practice and policy began shifting to recognize the important intersection of care delivery and payment for value over volume. Mitigating the negative impact of fragmented care and wasteful, high-cost medical services interested me greatly.

I was curious and hopeful about the role of publicly financed managed care in the reform agenda and the way payers could be a major partner to health care providers’ adoption of effective, team-based models of care. Thus, I joined Banner University Health Plans (formerly University of Arizona Health Plans) to lead their health care innovation work. There, with colleagues from the Arizona Center on Aging and Department of Geriatrics, I launched a home-based primary care program for low income, older adults. This work was buoyed by key elements of the JAHF agenda, including partnerships with the American Academy of Home Care Medicine, the Home-Centered Care Institute, and the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program.

Through managed care contracting, I had the pleasure of working with medical, behavioral, and social service partners across the state of Arizona and with national learning collaboratives such as the Oncology Care Model to develop and test programs, share data, and reward outcomes for the health of a population. These models with innovative payment designs allow providers of care to include non-reimbursable, vital contributors on their teams, such as behavioral health specialists, community health workers, and pharmacists. These disciplines address social factors, navigate complex treatment protocols, and promote the 4Ms of Age-Friendly Health Systems (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility), a powerful JAHF initiative Banner Health’s Department of Geriatrics recently joined.

As a lifelong learner – and to bolster my business acumen around sustainability and spread of evidence-based programs – I also returned to school and completed Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions doctoral program in integrated behavioral health, where I currently serve as a faculty associate.

An important driver of the greatest good is helping providers of care increase their impact by reducing their operational burden and barriers, thus allowing the science and art of health care to flourish. Here at JAHF, with our mission to improve the care of older adults, I have the honor of working on a variety of projects that unite key players toward this goal. Philanthropy applies investments to initiatives that can yield far-reaching results and takes chances on innovative ideas to deliver what really matters to the people we serve. I am grateful for this opportunity to complete my circle and joyfully do my part toward the greater good of improving care for older adults.