IHI Launches First Collaborative to Accelerate System-Wide Spread of Age-Friendly Care for Older Adults

New impact data from the initiative reveals that 3.29 million older adults have benefited from evidence-based age-friendly care at more than 3,900 care locations

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has launched an Age-Friendly System-Wide Spread Collaborative, engaging 30 US health systems to accelerate and spread adoption of evidence-based, high-quality care for older adults across all of their sites and care settings. The Collaborative is the latest endeavor of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, which has recognized 3,907 care settings as Age-Friendly since 2018, benefiting 3.29 million older adults who have received age-friendly care centered around what matters to them and their families.

Age-Friendly Health Systems deliver four evidence-based elements of high-quality care, known as the 4Ms: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility. During the 18-month Collaborative, health systems will test changes to ensure that the 4Ms are provided reliably and equitably as a standard practice across their entire system. The 30 participating teams will share data, learn from each other, and work to advance their own improvement aims to equitably scale age-friendly care delivery and adopt the 4Ms system-wide.

“This is an exciting and ambitious endeavor and responds to the overwhelming interest of systems to deliver age-friendly care to older adults and their family caregivers. It is a testament to the increasing importance of the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement to support our health systems and workforce to provide excellent care to the growing older adult population,” said Leslie Pelton, MPA, Vice President, IHI. “This Collaborative will give health systems the tools they need to provide the highest standard of care to every older adult at every care interaction and will exponentially increase the number of people who will benefit from the 4Ms.”

The 30 health systems participating in the Collaborative include hospitals, ambulatory care practices, convenient care clinics, and nursing homes across the US. They each have at least two sites of care recognized by IHI as Committed to Care Excellence, and they will have the opportunity to be among the first to achieve an ambitious new IHI recognition for system-wide spread of the 4Ms.

“The Age-Friendly Health Systems vision is that every older adult in every health care encounter receives evidence-based, age-friendly care that focuses on what matters most to them,” said Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, President of The John A. Hartford Foundation. “These innovative health systems are fulfilling that vision by committing to spreading age-friendly care from their emergency departments to their outpatient clinics, into their patients’ homes and beyond.”

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 United States (CHA). Your health system can learn about how to join the movement here.

About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent not-for-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. For more than 30 years, IHI has used improvement science to advance and sustain better outcomes in health and health systems across the world. IHI brings awareness of safety and quality to millions, catalyzes learning and the systematic improvement of care, develops solutions to previously intractable challenges, and mobilizes health systems, communities, regions, and nations to reduce harm and deaths. IHI collaborates with a growing community to spark bold, inventive ways to improve the health of individuals and populations. IHI generates optimism, harvests fresh ideas, and supports anyone, anywhere who wants to profoundly change health and health care for the better. Learn more at ihi.org.

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