Health Affairs

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 »

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 »

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 »

Editor’s note: Mark Smith is the president and CEO of the California HealthCare Foundation. He also chaired the Institute of Medicine panel that wrote the report–just released today–titled Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America. Smith’s blog post below was first published September 5 on GrantWatch Blog’s “big sister”... 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 »

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 »

A new GrantWatch article, “HIV/AIDS in African Children: The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and Baylor Response,” was released this week as part of the July 2012 issue of  Health Affairs. The issue has the theme “Assessing the [U.S.] President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR].” The U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Health and... Read the rest of this entry »

The president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation describes a recently announced initiative, cofunded with the Robert Wood Johnson, John A. Hartford, and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundations, to get the health professions to learn together, then practice, as a real team. A growing body of evidence shows that health care delivered by well-functioning teams... 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 »

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 »

Foundations are funding efforts to inform policy makers and others about the status of primary care, to expand access to primary care, and more. The latest issue of Health Affairs contains a sampling of what philanthropy is doing. In case you missed it, read “Foundation Efforts to Meet Demand for Primary Care,” the GrantWatch column... Read the rest of this entry »

GrantWatch Blog has been on its Fourth of July break. Below, in this post-holiday edition I’ve gathered links to several blog posts that you may want to add to your reading list. Global Health Malaria: “Saving Lives: When the Impossible Becomes Possible,” Alexandra Farnum on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Foundation Blog, June 24. In this... Read the rest of this entry »

As my work week draws to a close, I have put together a quick listing of some foundation-related posts that I think you might want to check out. If your foundation has a blog about health care and it is not listed on GrantWatch Blog’s Blogroll, let me know about it! Disparities in Health: “Poll... Read the rest of this entry »

Medicare and other entitlement programs are back in the news in the coverage of President Barack Obama’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget, which was released this week. In this post, I mention a selected sampling of recent foundation-funded efforts on Medicare. Recent Publications: DataBrief: The SCAN Foundation and Avalere Health say that low-income Americans who qualify for... 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 »

Here are links to other recent blog posts from and about health philanthropy that caught my eye. The topics range from health professions to health reform to hospitals. (The blogs mentioned are all listed in our Blogroll on the right side of the GrantWatch Blog page.) “A Boost to Better Care,” by Chris Langston, on... Read the rest of this entry »

The just-released September 2010 issue of Health Affairs contains a section on malpractice and medical errors. Today, the GrantWatch Blog looks at examples of foundation funding of research on malpractice reform and suggests related resources for further reading on this controversial topic. New Issue Brief: “Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Address the... Read the rest of this entry »

This month I received a letter from a physician who was dismayed to learn that a colleague was leaving medical practice. He wrote in his letter, “One of my dear friends was nudged into retirement because he didn’t order enough tests on the equipment which his practice had purchased…. His loss [to the field] is... Read the rest of this entry »

Many articles in the issue are authored by foundation staffers and/or funded by foundations. The June 2010 issue of Health Affairs was released today. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provided support toward the issue, which has the theme “Moving Forward on Health Reform.” Inside, you will find the GrantWatch Outcomes column with content on health reform, global... Read the rest of this entry »