JCH&L Recognized as Age-Friendly Health System
Jefferson Community Health & Life has achieved special recognition as an Age-Friendly Health System — Committed to Care Excellence in our ongoing efforts to ensure age-friendly care for all older adults we serve.
Over the last three months, we have collected data about the count of older adults who received a set of evidence-based elements of high-quality care, known as the 4Ms: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility. We are excited to continue our ongoing commitment towards reliable practice of the 4Ms. More than 5,200 hospitals, practices, convenient care clinics, nursing homes, and home health care organizations have been recognized as Age-Friendly Health Systems – Committed to Care Excellence.
The 4Ms:
- What Matters: Know and align care with each older adult’s specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care, and across settings of care.
- Medication: If medication is necessary, use Age-Friendly medications that do not interfere with What Matters to the older adult, Mobility, or Mentation across settings of care.
- Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat, and manage dementia, depression, and delirium.
- Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day to maintain function and do What Matters.
JCH&L is proud to join the growing ranks of these organizations in putting the 4Ms into practice. Globally, more than 5,470,000 older adults have been reached with 4Ms care.
“Our commitment to sharing data and learning only grows stronger as we further our efforts to improve care delivery for those most in need,” said Erin Smith, RN, JCH&L chief operating officer. “We continue to strive toward reliable implementation of age-friendly best practices for all of our hospital patients who are 65 and older. JCH&L has always been committed to care excellence and is proud and humbled to have achieved this external recognition.”
This age-friendly movement is guiding us to continue to provide excellent care to all of our patients.
“The Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative continues to be an important part of our overarching vision to provide every older adult with the best care possible. Above all, we aim every day to earn recognition of excellence from the older adults we serve,” said Holly Wolff, JCH&L chief executive officer.
Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the US (CHA).
“I applaud the team at Jefferson Community Health & Life for continuing your journey to advance age-friendly care,” said Camille Burnett, PhD, MPA, APHN-BC, BScN, RN, DSW, FAAN, Vice President for Health Equity, Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Burnett continued, “We know that older adults and staff alike want equitable, evidence-based quality care centered on what matters most to each individual. Together, we can move toward a future in which every older adult, during every care interaction, receives age-friendly care.”
For more information, visit ihi.org/age-friendly
