Health Affairs

I covered the Grantmakers In Health annual meeting in San Francisco in March. This meeting is always a wonderful occasion for me to meet or reacquaint myself with foundation staffers from around the United States. In this round-up post, I mention some interesting points made by various speakers at the event, which had some 550... Read the rest of this entry »

Today, on National Healthcare Decisions Day, authors Kate O’Malley of the California HealthCare Foundation and Nancy Zweibel of the Retirement Research Foundation, discuss how foundation efforts have contributed to the adoption and expansion of a standard paradigm for end-of-life planning. Many people assume that their family members know the kind of care they would want... Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone in the nonprofit world is all too aware of the fact that start-up funding for worthwhile projects is often hard to obtain from hard-pressed grantors. And even if nonprofits or social enterprises that are just getting off the ground (or innovative projects at established entities) do manage to get funded, there is the perennial... Read the rest of this entry »

I recently returned from covering the Grantmakers In Health (GIH) annual meeting in San Francisco, where Rebecca Onie was among the keynote speakers. She was a 2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Young Leader award winner and received a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2009. Health Leads, a Boston-based... Read the rest of this entry »

This blog post, with the original title of “Checking In with Grantmakers In Health’s New President and CEO,” first appeared on Health and Environmental Funders Network blog, which is called Giving InSight, on February 11: http://blog.hefn.org/2013/02/11/checking-in-with-grantmakers-in-healths-new-president-and-ceo/  ____________________________ HEFN [Health and Environmental Funders] Director Kathy Sessions spoke with Faith Mitchell, Grantmakers In Health’s [GIH's] newly appointed President and... Read the rest of this entry »

The author works for a large foundation that seeks “to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education, and disease prevention,” according to the foundation’s mission. She discusses a type of grant that many grant seekers would be pleased to receive. As director of evaluation and organizational learning at... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is the new president of Grantmakers In Health, an organization of health funders. It is based in Washington, D.C. In the past thirty years, health philanthropy has undergone major changes, and the field continues to evolve. In its role of advising and informing health funders, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) has been an active... Read the rest of this entry »

The president and CEO and the vice president of policy and communications at the Connecticut Health Foundation describe its new approach and the successes of its grantees. Foundations often employ the twin strategies of grant making and commissioning and advancing objective policy research, but rarely do the twain meet. Since its inception in 1999, the... Read the rest of this entry »

My GrantWatch column in the newly released February 2013 issue of Health Affairs focuses on what foundations around the country have been funding in these areas. Of course, the column includes only a sampling of foundation-funded activities. The column is free access to all. Health philanthropy has been exploring patient engagement in its grant making... Read the rest of this entry »

This is a slightly modified version of a post that appeared on Health Affairs blog on January 28. Health Affairs readers may have noticed something a little different about the Narrative Matters essay in January’s issue. The essay, “To Fight Bad Suga’, Or Diabetes, My Neighborhood Needs More Health Educators,” by Joseph West of Sinai... Read the rest of this entry »

It is time for another People Post with news of comings and goings at foundations. Also, watch for more people news in my GrantWatch column in the February issue of Health Affairs—it will be released next week! Roger Fine, former corporate vice president and general counsel of Johnson & Johnson, has been elected chairman of... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is the president and CEO of the Blue Shield of California Foundation, a statewide funder located in San Francisco. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act , there has been a persistent, urgent call to produce more primary care physicians. With many provisions of the health reform law to be implemented less... Read the rest of this entry »

This post first appeared on Health Affairs Blog on January 23. Great struggles sometimes result in unexpected opportunities.  In the waning moments of 2012, Congress remained in session to bridge partisan divides to solve the fiscal cliff impasse with the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA). Signing the ATRA into law also achieved policy change on... Read the rest of this entry »

My GrantWatch column in the recently released January 2013 issue of Health Affairs focuses on the workforce and foundations’ efforts to strengthen it. The column provides a snapshot of what foundations around the United States are funding. A variety of funders are interested in health professions workforce topics. In my small sampling, it appears that... Read the rest of this entry »

A foundation in Seattle that focuses on oral health has been working to go where their partners in health have long focused: on addressing the health of children before they are born. The mission of the Washington Dental Service Foundation is to prevent dental disease and improve overall health for residents of the state of... Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Year! We compiled a list of the ten most-read posts during 2012, in case you missed any of these. The most-read GrantWatch Blog post in 2012 was on the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky’s Howard L. Bost Memorial Health Policy Forum held in September in Lexington. We invited author Gabriela Alcalde, who joined... Read the rest of this entry »

The author previously led national quality and patient safety initiatives at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, including its twelve-year program to bring palliative care into the nation’s hospitals. She is the principal author of The Treatment Trap, The Battle Over Health Care: What Obama’s Reform Means for America’s Future, and the forthcoming book, Medicare Meltdown... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is a former Connecticut state legislator and the former president of a foundation in South Florida. In the aftermath of the unspeakable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, what we all seek most are the answers to two questions—why did this happen, and what could have been done to prevent it? As a... Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a long time since I have done a round-up of posts on other philanthropy blogs that have caught my eye, so today is the day! Other topics covered below include social determinants of health (specifically, housing), “tasksharing” in global health, and charities’ use of data. I love having the opportunity to peruse the... Read the rest of this entry »

On December 4, this funder, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, announced its intent to invest nearly $13 million in health care funding to four national nonprofits and more than a dozen other locally and regionally focused organizations. Support will include not only cash grants but donations of health information technology. The Verizon Foundation aims to reduce... Read the rest of this entry »