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(Credit: CHUYN / Getty Images)
Pick your home. Group of multicolored houses on sale.
Age-friendly care guidelines can help both caregivers and senior living residents. (Credit: CHUYN / Getty Images)

The American Hospital Association and partners are recruiting for the next iteration of an online community of healthcare organizations dedicated to practicing an “age-friendly” framework for long-term care. 

This will be the fifth cohort of the group, titled the Age-Friendly Health Systems Action Community, and will include individuals from almost all senior living and care settings — at no cost to the participants.

Members of the community will have access to monthly webinars, coaching and the ability to connect with healthcare experts and peers online.

A major goal of the initiative is to help foster dialogue between providers so that they are able to stay abreast of current shifts in technology and healthcare market trends.

“Older adults are living and working longer than any time in our history, redefining what life’s later stages look like,” said Rick Pollack, CEO of AHA, in a recent statement. “Hospitals and health systems want to be full partners in this promising evolution, doing all they can to ensure the ‘golden’ years are just that, marked by good health and the ability to enjoy life.”

The four tenets of the “Age Friendly Health Systems” model:

  1. Knowing “what matters” for individual residents/patients, whether it is to prevent cognitive decline or to facilitate end-of-life care.
  2. Managing medications so they achieve health goals, rather than merely pacifying or incapacitating someone.
  3. Mentation, or treating depression, dementia and delirium.
  4. Ensuring that older adults have full mobility of movement, to the extent that is possible.

The initiative is a collaboration between the American Hospital Association, the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. 

Development of the model, and building out a related community, began in 2018, following successful pilot programs at senior living sites such as Trinity Health Glacier Hills in Ann Arbor (MI) McKnight’s Senior Living reported at the time. Providers interested in becoming part of the next cohort can find more information here.