Age-Friendly Health Systems Initiative Partners
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). The initiative aims to address the challenges that health systems face to consistently provide evidence-based practices to every older adult at every care interaction. An Age-Friendly Health System involves consistently delivering a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care, known as the "4Ms," to all older adults within the system: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility.
Grady Health System
The Grady Health System is one of the nation's largest public safety-net hospitals. The Emma I. Darnell Geriatrics Center at Grady is a collaborative Emory and Morehouse interdisciplinary and outpatient model that provides care to the older and frail patients.
In October 2021, Grady received the Age-Friendly Health System (AFHS) - Committed to Care certification, an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. The certification recognizes Grady as a leader in a rapidly growing movement committed to the care of older adults guided by an essential set of age-friendly, evidence-based practices, causes no harm, and is consistent with what matters to the older adult and their family.
To address the need for increased workforce for Georgia's Medicaid nursing home patients, Georgia Gear will facilitate a new partnership between Grady and Crestview Nursing Home to expand age-friendly care through education of the nursing home supportive care workforce in their pursuit of IHI AFHS participation and recognition.
Integrated Memory Care
The Integrated Memory Care (IMC) program is a nationally recognized patient-centered medical home that provides primary care, individualized for people living with dementia and their families. IMC is a nurse-practitioner led model and partnership between the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University and Emory Healthcare primary care. The IMC's patient centered approach allows patients to receive a broad array of health care services in a single visit from an interprofessional team of nurses, geriatricians, neurologists, social workers, and medical assistants to provide exemplary care coordination in all areas of the patient's care.
IMC operates an ambulatory clinic practice and a community facility practice where care is driven by individualized plans aligned with patients' goals. The model takes a primary palliative care perspective, emphasizing aggressive symptom management, advance care planning, and holistic care. IMC has been recognized as a National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) level 3 patient centered medical home and by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as an Age Friendly Health system participant site. Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably providing a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care, known as the "4Ms," to all older adults in your system: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility.
Seavey Internal Medicine Clinic
Emory Healthcare's Seavey IM Clinic will become an Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Age Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) participant to address patients' needs for a greater age-friendly healthcare system. All our IHI AFHS participants will focus on enhancing and increasing provision of Medicare AWVs to address the 4Ms (1) What Matters; (2) Mobility; (3) Medication; and (4) Mentation) and the need for screenings.
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - South Georgia
The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - South Georgia (PCOM-SGA) is a private, not-for-profit additional location of the fully accredited PCOM. PCOM-SGA was founded in 2019 to help grow medical education in Southwest Georgia and meet the long-term health care needs of the region. PCOM-SGA emphasizes in its teaching knowing how to ask the right questions; listening for answers; and making connections where others might not see them. PCOM-SGA's focus on an integrated, team-oriented approach to health care helps learners dive deeper than the diagnosis to treat the whole person.
Georgia Gear has partnered with PCOM-SGA to provide interprofessional clinical training in rural and underserved primary care sites, with the intent to have these trainees practice in these sites upon completion of their clinical training programs.
