The John A. Hartford Foundation blog

What will it take to ensure that all physicians are competent to care for their large and growing numbers of older patients?
Despite being only 13 percent of the population, older adults (those over 65) are big users of health care. For example, they make up 35 percent of office visits to the average general internist, [...]

I’m pretty sure that this is true only late at night when people are telling scary stories around the campfire.  But the Hartford Foundation does seem to have a doppelganger in (or to be a doppelganger of) The Leyden Academy for Vitality and Ageing in the Netherlands.   Their mission, translated into English, is train[ing] young [...]

Congratulations to Don Berwick, MD, MPP, founding President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), on his recent appointment as the  Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  Dr. Berwick has dedicated his professional life to the promotion of quality and safety in health care delivery.  As one of our [...]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, or ACA as we insiders call it for short) has some very aggressive timelines. Among them is the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI) to be up and running by January 2011.
One of the top priorities of many health policy wonks and particularly Drs. Mark [...]

I was shocked to learn that Bob Butler passed away on July 4th. Although I have been a gerontologist for about 25 years, I never imagined that Dr. Butler could or would die.  Bob has been a presence in my life since I read Why Survive? Growing Old in America in the early eighties.
I had [...]

This blog represents the kickoff of our 10th anniversary celebration for Hartford’s Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC) initiative. This initiative, founded in 2000, includes a geriatric nurse scholars and fellows program, nine Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence throughout the country, and a coordinating center housed at the American Academy of Nursing under [...]

It isn’t every day that the Foundation’s concerns are echoed by an impartial and authoritative body like MedPAC, the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, commissioned by Congress to advise on the Medicare program. Although geriatric care was only a small part of a long chapter on graduate medical education payments in MedPAC’s very lengthy June 2010 [...]

In an early 1970s cartoon, an exchange occurred between two cartoon, Jackie-Mason-sounding anteaters that went something like this:
“You an anteater?”
“Yeah. I’m an anteater. You eat ants?”
“Yeah. I eat ants.”
That little dialogue has been a long-standing metaphor in my house. My husband and I always refer to it when we meet someone who shares a fundamental [...]

Earlier this month, I spoke—along with many colleagues in the health professions—at a Capitol Hill briefing with Senator Kohl (D-Wis) and his staff. Senator Kohl sponsored Senate Bill 245, Retooling the Health Care Workforce for an Aging America Act of 2009, which amends the Public Health Service Act to require the expansion of training to [...]