New Grants Totaling Nearly $6 Million Approved by JAHF Board of Trustees

JAHF RGB lg wbg 560x300 f86fc21d1b7165fd94fff71e4f27685f

The John A. Hartford Foundation Board of Trustees approved $5,991,046 for six grants that will spread age-friendly care for older adults, especially those living with serious illness and receiving long-term care in nursing homes and in the community.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai / Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC): Achieving Sustainable Change in the Care of Older Adults with Serious Illness ($1,960,000 for 3 years)

In order to improve the care of diverse, older adults experiencing serious illness, the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) seeks to integrate palliative care principles and practices into home-based care, advance health equity and scale innovation through a skill-building learning community within the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement. During the grant, CAPC will train 5,000 home-based clinicians in palliative and age-friendly care skills, engage 10 percent of CAPC members with new anti-racism and equity resources and implement palliative and age-friendly skill-building strategies with at least 25 new health care organizations. This initiative is co-funded by West Health Institute, Arthur Vining Davis Foundation and Milbank Memorial Fund.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Establishing an Age-Friendly Health Care Package for State Master Plans for Aging ($1,388,406 for 1.5 years)

Several states in recent years have committed or expressed interest in developing and implementing Master Plans for Aging, which are cross-sector, state-led strategic plans that help states transform the infrastructure and coordination of services for their aging populations. Under this grant, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) will develop an Age-Friendly Health Care Package for inclusion in state Master Plans for Aging that presents the implementation, measurement and business case for statewide adoption of programs from three initiatives – Age-Friendly Health Systems, the Geriatric Surgery Verification program and the Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative/Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation. These three initiatives will collaborate to test and refine a prototype model of an Age-Friendly Health Care Package in one state for its Master Plan for Aging and to serve as an example to all states. Health equity will be a core feature so that the package of health care interventions reaches diverse older adults to reduce disparities.

LeadingAge: Action to Improve Nursing Home Quality ($1,168,868 for 2 years)

The past two years have exacerbated and laid bare many longstanding needs in nursing home care and have spurred the nation to action. With major sponsorship from The John A. Hartford Foundation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released much-anticipated recommendations in The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality, which underscore the need for critical changes to the way America finances, delivers and regulates care in nursing homes. In this grant, LeadingAge, an association of non-profit aging service providers, will convene and lead an expert panel and stakeholder coalition to identify the most actionable recommendations and make them a reality, create an effective communications strategy, and evaluate plan implementation.

Project HOPE – The People-to-People Health Foundation / Health Affairs: Publishing and Disseminating Lessons on Innovations in Health Care to Support Age-Friendly Health ($905,800 for 3 years)

This grant continues The John A. Hartford Foundation's partnership with Health Affairs, the nation’s leading health policy journal, to advance best practices in the care of older adults and showcase aging and health policy issues as central to the national health care dialogue. Over the three year project, Health Affairs is continuing the Age-Friendly Health series of peer-reviewed papers, Forefront open-access articles, podcasts and Policy Insight events that inform and influence health care policy and practice. A special stream of content is focusing on policy evidence related to nursing home care to advance recommendations of the recently released National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality.

National PACE Association: PACE 200K - Building for Sustainable Growth and Quality ($467,972 for 3 years)

The Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) enables nursing home eligible, older adults to remain in their homes and receive coordinated home and community-based health and social services. With the goal of increasing access to PACE, the National PACE Association is scaling proven growth strategies, facilitating financing opportunities, establishing quality guardrails, advancing PACE access policy levers, and creating an advisory and tiered provider recognition program. This grant expects to double the PACE monthly enrollment, engage 25 percent of PACE organizations in a provider recognition learning community and have three to five states adopt the model practices for growth, access and quality, creating a trajectory to achieve a national PACE census of 200,000 by 2028. This initiative is co-funded by West Health and The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

AARP Foundation: Advancing Action - A Reimagined and Enhanced State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults, People with Physical Disabilities and Family Caregivers ($100,000 for 1.5 years)

Beginning in 2011, The SCAN Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund began supporting the AARP Foundation to produce the Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) State Scorecard, which examines measures that are tracked by at least 40 states and then ranks the states accordingly on their delivery of LTSS. The Scorecard has developed a reputation as a valuable and effective tool for policymakers, the media, health professionals, researchers and advocates. In this grant, AARP will update the Scorecard with a refreshed framework, indicators and scoring, including with updates related to COVID-19. AARP will explore collecting and analyzing data for the 2023 Scorecard that will address issues including workforce stability, equity and health disparities. This initiative is co-funded by The SCAN Foundation and The Commonwealth Fund.