Are any of your customers among the 162 hospitals and healthcare practices recognized this past fall as an Age-Friendly Health System? If so, offer them congratulations.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) recently recognized 85 hospitals and healthcare practices for their commitment to excellent care for people over age 65.
“Age-Friendly Health Systems” is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and IHI in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Age-friendly care focuses on four essential elements, called the 4Ms Framework:
- What matters to older adults.
- Medication, if needed, that is age friendly.
- Attending to mentation, including delirium, depression, and dementia.
- Mobility to maintain function.
“It is often difficult for hospitals and primary care practices to reliably deliver evidence-based care to older adults,” Leslie Pelton, MPA, senior director at IHI, said in a statement. “This can be disheartening to our health professionals and, of course, causes harm to older adults and their family caregivers.
“What’s drawn health professionals to the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement is that it offers an organizing framework of evidence-based care that can be practiced reliably. And it all starts with knowing and acting on what matters to the older adult.”
The hospitals and health systems are practices recognized as “Age-Friendly Health Systems – Committed to Care Excellence” that have shown exemplary alignment with the elements of the 4Ms Framework by reporting the number of older adults reached with the 4Ms over at least a three-month time period, according to IHI. Additionally, more than 300 other hospitals and healthcare practices are taking steps to implement age-friendly care through participation in Action Learning Communities or other collaborative programs offered by IHI and the initiative’s partners.
For a list of “Age-Friendly” providers, go to http://www.ihi.org/Engage/Initiatives/Age-Friendly-Health-Systems/Pages/Background.aspx.