New Grants Totaling Over $17 Million Approved by JAHF Board of Trustees
The John A. Hartford Foundation Board of Trustees approved $17,051,782 for seven grants that will spread age-friendly care to older adults and family caregivers, support a pipeline of leaders in aging policy, disseminate evidence-based messaging about serious illness care and improve state policies on access to palliative care and home and community-based services.
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Age-Friendly Health Systems Movement – Phase 3: Embedding, Deepening and Sustaining 4Ms Care in Health Care Systems ($7,578,812 for 3.5 years)
To ensure that care of older adults is age-friendly and chart a sustainable future for the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement will deepen the adoption of age-friendly care and the 4Ms framework within health systems and broaden the movement by engaging more sites of care. The grant will also support embedding age-friendly care in state and federal regulations, payment mechanisms, and policies, while building new revenue-generating services to sustain the movement beyond this funding period. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.
Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene: The Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program: A Pipeline for Leaders in Aging Policy ($3,026,263 for 4 years)
The Health and Aging Policy Fellows (HAPF) program provides professionals in health and aging with a year of financial support, project placements, career opportunities and expanded networks to directly influence the policymaking process and become effective advocates for older adults. This grant will continue the program for four additional years and support at least 48 new Fellows. The program has supported 175 Fellows over the last 14 years from a diversity of backgrounds, disciplines and career stages with placements in Congressional offices, federal agencies and non-profit organizations. The program leverages additional support from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Veterans Administration. Co-funding from West Health supports alumni activities.
University of Washington: Disseminating Evidence-Based Messaging about Palliative & End-of-Life Care for Persons Living with Serious Illness ($2,900,000 for 3 years)
The University of Washington will improve the care of older adults and address disparities in outcomes by widely disseminating evidence-based palliative and end-of-life care messaging. This work will be accomplished through a four-pronged approach: equipping leading national organizations with toolkits for frontline clinicians; incorporating messaging proven to reach diverse, underserved and historically oppressed populations; integrating public messaging about serious illness with the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement; and working with 12 leading national organizations providing dissemination support. Cambia Health Foundation is providing co-funding.
The twelve participating organizations are:
- The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
- Ariadne Labs: Serious Illness Care Program
- The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC)
- The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC)
- The Conversation Project / Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
- The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP)
- The National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care
- The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
- National Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
- Respecting Choices
- The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine/AMDA
- VitalTalk
Rush University Medical Center: Ready, Willing and Able: Caring for Caregivers in Age-Friendly Health Systems – Dissemination Phase ($1,854,890 for 3 years)
Family caregivers are vital partners in the health and health care of older adults, but despite their key role, caregivers are seldom asked if they are ready, willing or able to provide care, and their needs are neither routinely identified nor addressed within health systems. This three-year dissemination grant follows a planning project by Rush University Medical Center
to improve the care of older adults by addressing the needs of family caregivers through Rush’s Caring for Caregivers Model. This project will increase awareness within health systems of the importance of family caregivers, disseminate the model to 25 to 40 health systems and in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, identify of a set of scalable model elements to be integrated across the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement. RRF Foundation for Aging supports the Rush Caregiver Initiative.
National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP): Building State Policies to Improve Care for People with Serious Illness ($924,816 for 3 years)
In order to improve the care of older adults, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) seeks to strengthen state public policies for people with serious illness by engaging state leaders to develop palliative care benefit policies, tracking progress related to state policies, developing and disseminating resources for states and working on state palliative care benefit design. As a result, NASHP aims to support 10 states in advancing legislation, payment and regulations for people with serious illness; engage policymakers from all 50 states in activities to increase access to palliative care; launch the State Palliative Care Cost Calculator to estimate potential savings associated with implementation of a Medicaid palliative care benefit; and provide state Medicaid agencies with data identifying the population to be covered under a palliative care benefit.
ADvancing States: Maximizing the Impact of American Rescue Plan Act Home and Community-Based Funding – State Support and Learning Project ($465,000 for 1.5 years)
The enhanced funding for states’ home and community-based services (HCBS) provided by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) represents the largest investment in long-term services and supports programs in the history of the Medicaid program and will help keep people out of nursing homes. Passed by Congress in 2021, ARPA provides states with a 10 percent increase in their Medicaid funding to expand access to HCBS for older adults and people with disabilities, totaling approximately $35 billion. ADvancing States
is the membership organization that represents state-level aging and disability agencies, as well as Medicaid directors, who oversee long-term services and supports. ADvancing States’ project will include technical assistance to 6 to 10 states, policy research and promotion of best practices and hosting a convening to disseminate lessons learned to other states. Several states that are receiving ARPA funding have specifically identified promoting diversity, equity and inclusion among their main goals. Milbank Memorial Fund is providing co-funding.
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF): The 2022 – 2023 Older Adult Reporting Project ($302,001 for 15 months)
This grant will support Kaiser Health News’ (KHN) aging and health reporting desk to increase awareness and knowledge of older adults’ health care issues among the public, policy makers and health systems. At least 25 news stories will be produced to inform national health care debates. The grant will also support the Navigating Aging column, which provides practical health care information for older adults and family caregivers. KHN has distribution partnerships with The Washington Post, NPR and other media outlets that reach tens of millions of people, and the project will benefit from the overall reporting resources of KHN and the polling and research capacities of its parent organization, the Kaiser Family Foundation.