Age-Friendly Health Systems
Join the movement to make your health system age-friendly
|| Also visit our Age-Friendly Care page for Older Adults and Family Caregivers ||
|| Also visit our Age-Friendly Care page for Older Adults and Family Caregivers ||
We all deserve safe, evidence-based health care focused on what matters to us as we get older. That's age-friendly care.
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.
It's a movement helping hospitals, medical practices, retail pharmacy clinics, nursing homes, home-care providers and others deliver age-friendly care.
In an Age-Friendly Health System, value is optimized for all — patients, families, caregivers, health care providers, and the overall system.
WebMD visits Madsen Health Center in Utah, a great example of an age-friendly care provider that considers all of the 4Ms to really understand the patient.
When providers ask about a patient’s goals, medications, memory and mobility, they feel heard, says nurse practitioner Sidney Hunt of MinuteClinic at CVS.
Arthur’s providers at the VA in Salt Lake City are working to get him back to his favorite pastime – fishing in Alaska.
IHI has recognized 3,922 hospitals, practices and long-term care organizations as Age-Friendly Health Systems Participants and Committed to Care Excellence as of April 2024.
Age-Friendly Health Systems action communities, led by IHI and AHA, test the 4Ms Framework in hospital and ambulatory settings, sharing learnings in a virtual community.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is recruiting for the next Age-Friendly Health System Action Community, a seven-month, free learning opportunity convening spring 2024.
Learn more in the Invitation to Join and sign up.
More information on other ways to join the movement can be found at IHI.org/AgeFriendly.
A compilation of what we have learned about reliably delivering the 4Ms of Age-Friendly care to older adults in all settings. Read an issue brief about the book.
For further resources, go to IHI.org/AgeFriendly
Other articles include:
For a complete list of publications and news coverage, click here.
To watch Kedar Mate, MD, talk about his grandmother and age-friendly care, click here.
WebMD and JAHF published a consumer survey report of older adults, "Driving Toward Age-Friendly Care for the Future." The survey asked 2,700+ older adults and family caregivers about age-friendly health systems, and their attitudes to and experiences with the “4Ms” of care—the essential set of elements that systems need to address for older adults: what matters, medication, mentation, and mobility. Data were segmented by sex, race/ethnicity, and chronic conditions, as well as other factors.