PA Long-Term Care Learning Network Introduces New Partnerships with IHI to Improve Nursing Home Quality

On January 19, the Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Learning Network kicked off the first quarter of programming for the year. The selected theme for the quarter will focus on introducing participants to Age-Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) and evidence-based care for older adults through its new partnership with The Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and as a tie in to the work of the PA Pilot project for Revisiting the Teaching Nursing Home, sponsored by JHF, the John A. Hartford Foundation, Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and Independence Foundation. Through this collaboration with the PA Learning Network, Pennsylvania becomes the first state to make a deep dive into the curriculum available to its hundreds of nursing facilities statewide.

Speakers Alice Bonner, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior advisor for aging, The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Amy Walsh, MS, IHI program manager, gave an overview of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Its mission is to build a social movement so all care with older adults is age-friendly care that is guided by an essential set of evidence-based practices (4Ms: what Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility), causes no harm, and is consistent with what matters to the older adults and their family.

The movement has spread to 2,600 sites with over 2,944 hospitals, practices, convenient care clinics, and nursing homes joining the movement and growing globally. More than 1,996,000 older adults have been reached with the 4Ms of care.