From its founding in 1929 until today, the John A. Hartford Foundation has been at the forefront of pioneering advances in medicine and healthcare, funding research and programs that have literally revolutionized medicine and shaped the delivery of health care in the 20th century, and continuing into the 21st century.

The Foundation’s early administrators sought to fund promising medical research that could not obtain funding from other sources. In doing so, they took risks on many avenues of research that at the time were uncertain, but with often remarkable, even sometimes astounding, results. Hartford grants were used to fund the first kidney transplants, to create the equipment that keeps patients alive on longterm kidney dialysis, to discover and disseminate electrical therapies for restoring abnormal heart rhythms, to set up the first specialized cardiac care units, to turn cataract surgery into a minimally invasive procedure, to use lasers to treat diabetic retinopathy and to investigate cryogenic therapies, among many, many others

In the 1980s, the Foundation began to focus on aging and health, recognizing that the unprecedented growth of the over-65 population was impacting medicine and health services earlier than almost any other part of American society. Today, the Hartford Foundation is the country’s largest private foundation focused solely on aging and health. Since 1983, $290.7 million has been devoted to projects across the nation to prepare health professionals for both the variety of older patients they will treat and the various systems of care in which they will work, and to create new models of integrated health services, in geriatric medicine, nursing and social work.