JCH&L Participates in National Age-Friendly Health Systems Initiative
Jefferson Community Health & Life is part of a movement to improve health care for older adults, contributing to a goal of continuing to expand and grow age-friendly care.
As part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, 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, are helping health care organizations implement a set of evidence-based interventions specifically designed to improve care for older adults.
Collaborative learning opportunities across the movement bring together health care teams committed to sharing data and improving together. All teams strive toward reliably implementing age-friendly best practices across hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, home health agencies and primary and specialty care settings.
JCH&L now joins an international group of more than 5,200 health systems working to tailor care to patients’ goals and preferences and to deliver care that is consistently of the highest quality.
“JCH&L has always been on the forefront of patient care, and that’s why we are participating in this vital movement. We look forward to both sharing our best practices and learning what’s working for others providing age-friendly care,” said Holly Wolff, CEO of JCH&L. “The Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative is an important part of our overarching vision to provide every older adult with the best care possible.”
The initiative is based on a series of practices focused on addressing four essential elements of care for older patients:
- 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 across settings of care.
- Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day in order to maintain function and do What Matters.
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). For more information, visit www.ihi.org/agefriendly.
