Throughout the pandemic, recipients of The John A. Hartford Foundation (JAHF) three-year grant, Moving and Scaling Home-Based Primary Care Phase II: Quality, Training and Advocacy, have continued driving home their mission to improve and expand access to high-quality home-based primary care (HBPC) for the homebound population of aging adults and other individuals with limited ability to leave their homes. As part of JAHF’s larger initiative to create age-friendly health systems, the grant has assisted the recipients in reaching critical milestones and expanding HBPC’s footprint.
Following is a brief summary of the progress grant recipients have made with their respective projects:
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- The American Academy of Home Care Medicine (AAHCM) launched its searchable National Home Care Medicine Practice Directory in August 2021 to help patients and their families connect to local home-based care providers, as well as serve as a professional resource for referrals and new care team relationships. "We are thrilled we were able to launch the Home Care Medicine Practice Directory in 2021, the most comprehensive directory of its type dedicated to improving access to home care medicine providers,” said Dr. Norman Vinn, AAHCM President. “In 2022, we plan to enhance the directory by updating provider information and adding a few additional features to better inform referral choices and better serve the field of home care medicine.” Since its launch, the directory has received more than 12,500 views.
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- The Home Centered Care Institute (HCCI) continues to be a national leader in bringing home-based primary care into the healthcare mainstream by growing and teaching a diverse workforce of clinical providers, operations staff, and practice leaders. It does so through a portfolio of offerings, including downloadable resources, webinars, online courses, workshops, pre-conferences, and shadowing experiences. “With each year of this project, we are working with more and more practices to equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to serve a growing number of homebound and home-limited patients,” said Melissa Singleton, Chief Learning Officer for HCCI. “These practices have benefited from our expanded education, technical assistance, and consulting activities, as well as our business intelligence and data analytics services, to improve their efficiency, productivity, and sustainability.”
- The National Home-Based Primary Care Learning Network, led by Dr. Christine Ritchie at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and Dr. Bruce Leff at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is expanding to 47 practices in June 2022. The Learning Network practices collectively provide care to over 58,000 patients across the country, reaching approximately one-fourth of all patients currently receiving HBPC in the United States. According to one Learning Network member, it is “energizing to be around our colleagues when we usually feel so isolated… [We] push to strive to do better.” In addition to these efforts, the Learning Network’s Quality Learning Action Committee (QLAC), which includes patients and caregivers, continues to meet regularly to identify opportunities for the Learning Network to best serve patients, caregivers, and the field of home-based primary care.
“The collective progress made by these three initiatives is making an important contribution to the growing momentum in the health care policy arena to make high-quality home-based primary care more accessible,” said Scott Bane, JD, MPA, Program Officer at The John A. Hartford Foundation. “Our grantees are building the quality and training infrastructure needed to make value-based payment models that support age-friendly home-based care a reality.”
About The John A. Hartford Foundation
The John A. Hartford Foundation, based in New York City, is a private, nonpartisan, national philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults. The leader in the field of aging and health, the Foundation has three priority areas: creating age-friendly health systems, supporting family caregivers, and improving serious illness and end-of-life care. For more information visit www.johnahartford.org and follow @johnahartford.
