Now the John A. Hartford Foundation Board of Trustees has approved $13.5 million in new grant funding to advance the Age-Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) movement toward national scale through clinical practice, research, education and policy.


One of the grants will go to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), which will work to propel the AFHS movement toward a critical tipping point for national scale, reaching 20 percent of all older adults (14 million people) with age-friendly care annually by 2030. 

IHI will orchestrate a unified national strategy to strengthen implementation of the 4Ms Framework across health systems and care settings; align policy, payment, regulation and technology with the 4Ms; advance the AFHS recognition process; and rapidly translate implementation learning into practical, field-ready tools that make reliable 4Ms care easier to deliver at scale. 

The grant will also advance family caregiver engagement as an essential component of age-friendly care. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the American Hospital Association.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is leading a national effort to strengthen the evidence base for AFHS. Building on a prior grant that established an AFHS Research Council and national Research Network with more than 700 members, this three-year project will strengthen the AFHS research community, build shared data and measurement infrastructure, and identify consensus-based measures for the AFHS movement. The project is designed to generate policy-relevant evidence aligned with federal priorities, including the CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure and Veterans Health Administration implementation.

The project will also produce actionable, high-quality evidence that health systems can use to improve care for older adults.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) will develop and launch a new Age-Friendly Health Plan Program to strengthen accountability for age-friendly care across Medicare Advantage plans nationwide. As health plans play a key role in shaping care for a growing older adult population, the program will address a critical gap by creating a standardized mechanism to assess, recognize and incentivize delivery of the 4Ms Framework. NCQA will engage Medicare Advantage plans to pilot and refine the program and align it with CMS Star Ratings and other value‑based payment levers. This initiative has the potential to influence plan behavior at scale, accelerate adoption of age‑friendly practices across provider networks and improve the quality of care for millions of older adults.

Two initiatives will advance a national strategy to improve nursing home quality through nursing education and nationwide scaling of proven age-friendly care initiatives. Together, the initiatives will also advance the development and consideration of a CMS age-friendly nursing home quality measure.   

• The Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition (Grantee: LeadingAge) will continue to strengthen the national advocacy infrastructure needed to improve nursing home quality and create tools to support nursing home resident councils, improve Certified Nursing Assistant career pathways, and embed residents’ goals, preferences and priorities into care, operations and policy.

• The Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative (Grantee: Health Careers Futures, Jewish Healthcare Foundation) will engage 1,500 nursing homes to advance nursing student placements and academic partnerships, and assist 500 nursing homes in achieving Age-Friendly Health Systems recognition.