The pandemic has significantly underscored the need for, and awareness of, home-based care models. Within this new landscape, 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 made significant progress toward their goal of improving care for the “invisible homebound” population of older adults and individuals with limited ability to leave their homes. In all, these efforts align with JAHF’s initiative to create age-friendly health systems.
Following are highlights of the past year’s accomplishments by the grantees:
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The American Academy of Home Care Medicine (AAHCM) is building an online home-care medicine national practice directory to connect patients to practices and refer other providers to home-care medicine “We have accomplished the background work needed to create a solid infrastructure for the new directory, including identifying the data most important to users and the various data feeds that the directory will pull from,” said Brent Feorene, Executive Director for AAHCM. “We also interviewed multiple web developers and recently launched the project implementation process with the selected vendor.” The launch of the new directory is anticipated in June this year.
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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. “By expanding, and even tailoring, our offerings for live and on-demand education, HCCI is able to equip house call programs with the knowledge, skills, tools, and processes they need to be sustainable,” said Melissa Singleton, Chief Learning Officer for HCCI. “Through our comprehensive curriculum, we are training house call teams to provide high quality clinical care; apply proven strategies to enhance efficiency, safety and reimbursement; and navigate the full spectrum of payment structures, including fee-for-service and value-based models.” In the first year of this grant, more than 1,500 providers and practice staff were trained or received technical assistance from HCCI.
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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 expanded from eight original participating practices to 28 practices by March 2021. According to Naomi Gallopyn, Program Manager for the Learning Network, “This growing community of home-based primary care practices is building a culture together of continuous learning and care quality. These practices are encouraging each other to measure the quality of their care, address barriers to practice engagement, and work to serve to the best of their ability the patients and families under their care.” In addition to these efforts, the Learning Network’s Quality Learning Action Committee (QLAC), which includes clinicians, patients, and caregivers held the first of a series of meetings to identify opportunities for the Learning Network to best serve patients, caregivers, and the field of home-based primary care.
“Home-based care providers are a lifeline for older adults with limited ability to leave their homes, whether it’s delivering essential primary care or COVID-19 vaccinations,” said Scott Bane, JD, MPA, Program Officer at The John A. Hartford Foundation. “The collaborative work of these three organizations is helping more providers deliver the right kind of age-friendly care in the right place for older adults with the most complex needs.”
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.