Creating Age-Friendly Health Systems

[...]the demand for healthcare services is predicted to rise more than 200 percent, putting additional pressure on an already strained healthcare system, according to a 2014 U.S. Census Bureau report titled An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States. Going forward, reducing clinical variation will be dependent upon understanding how these variables can influence healthcare status and outcomes in older adults. [...]this is a moment of compelling opportunity to leverage care models that can align with existing knowledge and best practices. A health system will know it is age friendly through analysis of data for the following measures: * Percentage of patients and families in the community, the hospital and the post-acute setting who report receiving care that matched their goals * Percentage of patients who are discharged from the hospital and post-acute care setting to home or their community * Number of days the older adult spends at home and free of institutional care As we've suggested, NICHE, PACE and other programs are in many ways the genesis for the 4Ms, now augmented and organized in such a way that health systems can adopt them more reliably and at scale.