INQUIRY—The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing Paper: A Path to Better Care for Older Adults—Optimizing Medicare and Medicaid Payments Through Implementation of the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure
INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing has published a paper, "A Path to Better Care for Older Adults: Optimizing Medicare and Medicaid Payments Through Implementation of the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure," authored by JAHF's Terry Fulmer, Rani E. Snyder and Leslie J. Pelton, and former president/CEO of IHI, Kedar Mate.
The paper introduces the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure, a structural quality measure that launched in January 2025 through the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program. Grounded in the Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms Framework (What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility), the measure prompts hospitals to attest to five domains that promote evidence-based, goal-aligned care for older adults. Meeting these domains is associated with providing higher-quality care for older adults, leading to improved outcomes and reduced costs.
The authors outline how the 4Ms and JAHF-supported initiatives like the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, Geriatric Surgery Verification, and Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation (GEDA) can help hospitals achieve the five domains of the measure.
They note, "The measure will also be reported publicly and transparently so that older adults and family caregivers who have the opportunity to choose care providers can select those providers that meet the Age-Friendly Hospital Measure."
This article is part of INQUIRY's Age-Friendly Health System Special Collection.
Read the paper.
Learn more about the AFHS initiative.
Learn more about the Geriatric Surgery Verification.
Learn more about GEDA.
Learn more about the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure.
Learn more about JAHF's co-support of the AFHS initiative, the GSV program and GEDA.
