Health Careers Futures Receives $3.6 Million for Next Phase of Statewide Initiative to Transform the Long-Term Care Workforce

PITTSBURGH — Health Careers Futures, an operating arm of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF), has announced $3.6 million in funding to support the second phase of the Revisiting Teaching Nursing Home Initiative. The initiative aims to transform nursing education and enhance the nursing home workforce, ultimately advancing the quality of care provided to older adults. The John A. Hartford Foundation will provide a $3.3 million, three-year grant to support Phase II, Dissemination Across PA, to build upon the successes of the Teaching Nursing Home pilot. JHF will provide an additional $300,000, three-year grant to also support this next phase. 

Phase I of the Revisiting Teaching Nursing Home Initiative, carried out by JHF with academic–nursing home partners from the western, central, and eastern regions of Pennsylvania, increased the frequency and quality of nursing student placements in nursing homes, enriched geriatric, and long-term care curricula, and implemented the Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms Framework (what Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility) across nursing homes and schools of nursing. The pilot confirmed the value of formalizing clinical rotations for students in nursing homes using codesign principles and helped to identify specific skills and training that should be included in the academic and practice settings. 

Further, the pilot identified opportunities to leverage the strength of the Age-Friendly Health Systems 4Ms Framework for nursing homes and for scaling the initiative to all nursing homes and schools of nursing across Pennsylvania. As a result of this effort, 591 residents have received Age-Friendly Health Systems care; 677 nursing home staff members have been trained on the 4Ms, and 510 nursing students have engaged with the 4Ms in the nursing home. 

"The first phase of this initiative was exciting in how it demonstrated the ability to simultaneously improve nursing home quality and introduce a positive experience for nursing students. The success of this pilot inspired us to further invest in dissemination of the model across the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," said Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation. "As we look to enhance nursing home quality and address workforce issues, we are grateful to have the participation and interest from our federal agency partners who can help achieve national solutions." 

Phase II will concentrate on taking the model to scale across Pennsylvania, with the goal of reaching 100% of nursing homes and schools of nursing in the Commonwealth. This will be achieved by engaging broad stakeholders to build a sustainable infrastructure across Pennsylvania, employing strategies demonstrated to improve residents' quality of care and outcomes within nursing homes, maximizing the engagement of the key partners and leaders from Phase I to scale and expand the Revisiting Teaching Nursing Home model to 30 schools of nursing and 400 nursing homes across Pennsylvania, and evaluating interventions and broadly disseminating the framework, resources, and lessons learned beyond Pennsylvania. HCF will be partnering with 12 subcontractors for Phase II, including Phase I partner schools of nursing (University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Pennsylvania) and nursing facilities (UPMC Canterbury Place, The Willows/Presbyterian SeniorCare, Wesley Enhanced Living Main Line, and Centre Care Rehabilitation and Wellness). New partners include the Pennsylvania Association of Directors of Nursing Administration, Pennsylvania Higher Education Nursing Schools Association, AMDA—The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, and Leading Age/Moving Forward Coalition. 

Phase I of the Revisiting Teaching Nursing Home Initiative was supported through funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation (lead funder), JHF, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and the Independence Foundation. JHF anticipates securing additional funding to support Phase II of the initiative.

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About the Jewish Healthcare Foundation

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and its three operating arms — the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), Health Careers Futures (HCF), and the Women's Health Activist Movement Global (WHAMglobal) — offer a unique brand of activist philanthropy to advance healthcare innovation, advocacy, collaboration, and education in the interest of better population health. For more information, visit jhf.org.