Health Affairs Grantwatch Documents the John A. Hartford Foundation’s Impact on the Growth of Geriatrics Over 30 Years
Health Affairs has published a new GrantWatch article in its January issue, “The John A. Hartford Foundation and The Growth of Geriatrics,” by Stephen Isaacs, JD, and Paul S. Jellinek, PhD, both founders and partners at Isaacs/Jellinek, and Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, President of The John A. Hartford Foundation. The paper evaluates the impact of The John A. Hartford Foundation’s past thirty-plus years of grant making in aging and health, totaling an investment of nearly a half-billion dollars.
The evaluation, conducted by Isaacs/Jellinek, a consulting company that works with foundations, found that The John A. Hartford Foundation has improved the care of older adults in the United States by:
- Playing an instrumental role in creating the field of geriatrics, a new field in American health care, “essentially from scratch”
- Working to ensure that “all of the nation’s practicing physicians, nurses, and social workers who provided care to older adults received at least some geriatrics training during their professional education”
- Supporting palliative care – which has now been widely adopted by the U.S. health care system – for many years
- Helping to reduce the stigma of caring for older people
“This assessment confirms what we’ve long believed - that The John A. Hartford Foundation is making a meaningful difference in the care of older adults through strategic, long-term collaboration with a diverse array of partners, evidence-based learnings, and a proven track record of results,” said The John A. Hartford Foundation President Terry Fulmer.