COOPERSTOWN - Bassett Healthcare Network has been selected to join a group of 30 health systems nationwide in the Age-Friendly System-Wide Spread Collaborative. The first program of its kind, led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has selected a small group of U.S. health systems in addition to Bassett – including Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai, New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, and Atlanta-based Grady Health – who will accelerate and spread adoption of evidence-based, high-quality care for older adults across all of their sites and care settings.
Age-Friendly Health Systems are an influential framework for individualized, compassionate care for our 65 and older population, many with multiple chronic conditions, said Laura Palada, RN, BSN, MHA, director of quality at Bassett Healthcare Network.
Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to follow an essential set of evidence-based practices, cause no harm, and align with what matters to older adults and their caregivers.
The four essential elements of an Age-Friendly Health System are known as the 4Ms. The collaborative is a learning and action community for U.S. health systems interested in fully embedding the 4Ms system-wide to have an equitable impact on older adults across all of their sites and settings of care.
The 4Ms are:
• 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 to maintain function and do what matters.
Bassett Healthcare Network earned the initiative’s Committed to Care Excellence designation in 2023 after demonstrating reliable practice of the 4Ms in all five of Bassett Healthcare Network’s hospitals. Now, during the 18-month collaborative, Bassett Healthcare Network will build on its progress and test changes to ensure that the 4Ms are provided equitably as a standard practice as older adults receive care across its entire system.
Since 2018, the movement has recognized 3,907 care settings as age-friendly, 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 is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.
