Health Affairs

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 »

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 »

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 is program director of the John A. Hartford Foundation, a national funder based in New York City. He is editor and contributor for its blog, Health AGEnda. For more than twenty years, the John A. Hartford Foundation has worked to improve the health of older Americans. And over that time, institutionally, we have... 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’s a short holiday week. So, for some light reading, read this “people post.” You likely will recognize some of the names mentioned. Happy Thanksgiving! For more personnel news, watch for my January GrantWatch column (free access) in Health Affairs. In October 2012, Don Berwick, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, received... Read the rest of this entry »

The Carter Center, in partnership with the Liberian government and foundations, including Focusing Philanthropy and the John P. Hussman Foundation, is helping post-conflict Liberia dramatically expand mental health services with the goal of reaching 70 percent of its population. The Carter Center is a not-for-profit organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his... Read the rest of this entry »

The author served on the Institute of Medicine panel that wrote a recent report on the health professions workforce that will be needed to care for older people with mental illness and substance use conditions. He is executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, in Austin, Texas. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report,... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog invited the author, who recently joined the staff of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, to report on its recent Howard L. Bost Memorial Health Policy Forum, which was held in Lexington. On September 17, the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky held its tenth annual health policy forum in Lexington, Kentucky. (The forum was named... Read the rest of this entry »

The author, director of state health policy at the California HealthCare Foundation, discusses how that funder has been working with California officials to support implementation of various pieces of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 at the state level. Federal health reform establishes the framework for sweeping changes to the nation’s health care delivery system... Read the rest of this entry »

My GrantWatch column in the September issue of Health Affairs, “Mental Health: What Foundations Are Funding,” provides a snapshot of foundation efforts around the country to help people who suffer from mental illness. A variety of funders are interested in this topic. In my small sampling, it appears that support for integrated health care, in... Read the rest of this entry »

This Denver-based consultant previously worked for twelve years in health philanthropy as senior program officer with the Rose Community Foundation of Denver and as vice president of programs for the Colorado Health Foundation. A week after the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the Denver Post headline read “Suspect sent notebook to CU before rampage.” The... Read the rest of this entry »

This week, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced nine research grants, the results of which should help states implement various provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Commonwealth Fund released an issue brief on progress toward getting health insurance exchanges up and running in three states. And the Empire... Read the rest of this entry »

Check out news of recent hires at foundations and elections to foundation boards. I have also included a few job openings in health philanthropy. Russ Gould, a partner in California Strategies, LLC, a public affairs firm based in Sacramento, has been elected to the board of the California Endowment. Gould is a past chair of the UC... 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 »

Here are some blog posts that caught my eye this week, as I sifted through foundation blogs I follow. The descriptions are brief—just to give you a flavor of what the post is about.  This is a short week in the office for me, as I head over to nearby Baltimore for the Grantmakers In... Read the rest of this entry »

Foundations should provide leadership in programming and advocacy for this population. In the early 1990s, there was a movie entitled Dave. Kevin Kline stars in it as the head of an employment agency who happens to look exactly like the president of the United States. When the president has an incapacitating stroke as he cheats... Read the rest of this entry »

We compiled a list of the most-read posts during 2011, in case you missed any of these. The most-read GrantWatch Blog post in 2011 was on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s skill at using social media to communicate with those who follow its activities. And that is not surprising, because of the large population that... Read the rest of this entry »

In combing through a number of foundation blogs that I follow (as time permits), I found these recent posts, which you may find relevant to your work. The topics covered by these writings range from oral health to the Gates Foundation’s interactions with grantees and on topics from mental health to HIV/AIDS prevention. Bloggers include... Read the rest of this entry »