Health Affairs

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 »

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 »

This week, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a national plan to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. The National Alzheimer’s Project Act, legislation that was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress (yes, you read that correctly!) in 2010 required HHS to come up with a plan, said... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog asked the author, a staffer at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, in Pittsburgh, to report on a conference that the funder and the Coalition for Quality at End of Life convened this spring. Readmissions Reduction. Health Information Technology. Patient-Centered Medical Home. Cost Effectiveness. Best Practice. Provider Education. Workforce Training. Care Transitions. Public-Private Partnerships. Policy... 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 »

I have put together a listing here of some foundation-related blog posts that you may want to check out. Now that summer has arrived, perhaps things are slowing down in your workplace, and you now have time for some professional reading! Links to a wide variety of posts follow. Incidentally, if you work for a... 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 »

Today I want to tell you about a blog post published recently on the John A. Hartford Foundation’s health AGEnda blog. Its focus is patient-centered care. This post does not contain theoretical or hypothetical musings about that topic, and it is not a dry recitation of facts. Instead, the information presented here is very real,... Read the rest of this entry »

End-of-life care presents emotional, physical, and financial burdens for patients and their loved ones. At the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF), in Pittsburgh, we have become somewhat fixated on the fact that the health care system too often fails families and patients at end of life. Unfortunately, failure is what most people expect. But JHF end-of-life... Read the rest of this entry »

Below, we have tabulated a list of the three most-read GrantWatch Blog posts in August 2010. (GrantWatch Blog launched in March 2010.) Here is a chance to take a gander at these posts if you missed them when the original Tweet or e-alert came out. “The Relief of Suffering from Serious Illness: How Foundations Can... Read the rest of this entry »

Our discussions at the recent health funders’ retreat at Brandeis University drove home an important point. The Affordable Care Act is a lot more than a series of provisions to assure access to health care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. The new health reform law creates opportunities to develop fundamental and complementary payment and... Read the rest of this entry »

The high cost of end-of-life care in the United States has been a source of hand-wringing among health economists and policy wonks for decades. (See “End-of-Life Savings: A ‘Fool’s Gold’ of Reform” on the Health Affairs Blog.) Nonetheless, a wise man once said, “Every problem has a solution.” This problem has a solution, too, and grantmakers... Read the rest of this entry »