Health Affairs

Here are some recent foundation blog posts that caught my eye. The subjects are varied, so there is something for everybody to read! Environmental Health; Disaster Planning On April 29 Lauren Linville, a communications associate with the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN), wrote on its Giving Insight blog about lessons learned during Hurricane Sandy. In “Six... Read the rest of this entry »

The author is president and CEO of the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation, a national health philanthropy located in Morristown, New Jersey. In 2007 the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation set out to understand why changes that we know need to take place in the health system don’t regularly happen and what can be done to remedy... 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 »

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 »

Anne Weiss is a senior program officer who directs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Quality/Equality Health Care team. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently released a new report and convened leading policy makers and other influencers for an important discussion on one of the biggest problems facing our health care system: avoidable hospital readmissions.... Read the rest of this entry »

This post, by my colleague Chris Fleming, originally appeared on Health Affairs Blog, which is GrantWatch Blog’s “big sister” blog here at the journal. On November 21, Health Affairs released a series of Web First articles profiling the winners of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Young Leaders Awards, which were announced this Fall on... Read the rest of this entry »

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation sent out its list of 2012 fellows for what some call its “genius grants” yesterday. As I looked through the list of twenty-three new fellows, I was delighted to see the name of Eric Coleman of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He has done innovative work... Read the rest of this entry »

On August 28 I attended the launch of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Patient Care Program. This national funder, based in Palo Alto, wants to do transformative work in this area and is prepared to commit $500 million over ten years to do it, if all goes well. Yes, you read that right: that... Read the rest of this entry »

My GrantWatch column in the August 2012 issue contains a selected sampling of foundation funding on the topic of the health care safety net. Grants awarded include efforts to help safety-net providers, as well as populations who turn to the safety net for their health care. The column is but a small part of the... Read the rest of this entry »

Upon receiving the news “you have cancer,” there are many questions that run through a patient’s mind, key among them: Where can I get the best care?  Today, meaningful information to help patients answer this question is lacking.This post is based on remarks that the author made on July 12, in Los Angeles, at the... Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for GrantWatch Blog’s periodic scan of foundation blogs to see what the funders are talking about and following. Other topics highlighted below are cancer prevention, games used for health education, health professions education, nonprofit hospitals, and smoking. Games for Health “Gaming the Field,” Ben Sawyer (cofounder of DigitalMill and the Games for Health... Read the rest of this entry »

The tragedy that occurred in Joplin in May 2011 is back in the news as its anniversary rolls around. This week, President Obama delivered the commencement address to the 2012 graduating class of Joplin High School. The twister arrived just after the 2011 graduation ceremony, completely destroying the school. The new school is supposed to... Read the rest of this entry »

Periodically, I do a people post here, similar to the class notes in an alumni magazine! Find out whatever became of that person who was your program officer or who sat next to you at a conference. Gwyn Barley has been named director of programs for the Colorado Trust. In this position, she will be... Read the rest of this entry »

Read about the New York State Health Foundation’s “five-year, $35 million campaign to reverse the diabetes epidemic [in the Empire State] by improving clinical care, sustaining a comprehensive and coordinated care system, and promoting prevention.” The GrantWatch Profile in the January 2012 issue of Health Affairs, titled “New York State Health Foundation’s Diabetes Campaign Is Influencing... Read the rest of this entry »

Grantmakers In Health’s Fall Forum, held in Washington, DC, included a well-attended one-day issue dialogue on the health care safety net. Following are a few highlights from speakers’ remarks and the subsequent Q & A session. To start off the day, well-known analysts Leighton Ku of the George Washington University (GWU) and Bruce Siegel of... Read the rest of this entry »

Why did the Duke Endowment decide to select disease prevention as one of its three major funding areas in health care? Why would a private foundation invest in programs and infrastructure to prevent disease when the number of uninsured is growing and there is not enough funding available to treat people burdened with chronic disease? ... Read the rest of this entry »

These authors from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Pfizer Inc, respectively, discuss what has been learned thus far from this program funded by Pfizer and the Pfizer Foundation. Noncommunicable diseases have become an important global health concern—they account for 60 percent of all deaths worldwide, or about 35 million deaths, a year with... Read the rest of this entry »

We list below the three most-read posts during the month. Take a look in case you missed one of these when the original tweet or e-alert went out. 1. “Foundation Blogs Round-up: Community Clinics, Health Reform, Health IT, & More,” by Lee-Lee Prina (March 31). First on the most-read list during April was a selected... Read the rest of this entry »

Read about the California HealthCare Foundation’s effort to be a catalyst for change in this area. While access to palliative care has been steadily increasing in hospital settings over the past decade, a survey published in 2007 on the availability of palliative care in California and funded by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), found that... Read the rest of this entry »

I have pulled together a list of links to philanthropy-related blog posts that have come across my desk in recent weeks. I hope that you will see a few that pique your interest. During this short week between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I am keeping my “roundup” post—covering several important topics—short! Happy New... Read the rest of this entry »