Bassett Healthcare Network Selected Among 30 Health Systems Nationwide to Collaborate on Age-Friendly Care for Older Adults

Cooperstown, NY — Bassett Healthcare Network has been selected to join a group of 30 health systems nationwide in the Age-Friendly System-Wide Spread Collaborative. The first program of its kind, led by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has selected a small group of U.S. health systems in addition to Bassett – including Los Angeles-based Cedars Sinai, New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, and Atlanta-based Grady Health – who will accelerate and spread adoption of evidence-based, high-quality care for older adults across all of their sites and care settings.

“Age-Friendly Health Systems are an influential framework for individualized, compassionate care for our 65 and older population, many with multiple chronic conditions,” says Laura Palada, RN, BSN, MHA, Director of Quality at Bassett Healthcare Network. 

“We are privileged to have been chosen to participate in this collaborative effort to better serve one of our largest growing and most vulnerable populations of patients. It is also important to bring the perspective of rural healthcare to the conversation.”

Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to follow an essential set of evidence-based practices, cause no harm, and align with what matters to older adults and their caregivers.

The four essential elements of an Age-Friendly Health System are known as the 4Ms. The collaborative is a learning and action community for U.S. health systems interested in fully embedding the 4Ms system-wide to have an equitable impact on older adults across all of their sites and settings of care.

The 4Ms are:

• What Matters: Know and align care with each older adult's specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care, and across settings of care.
• Medication: If medication is necessary, use age-friendly medications that do not interfere with what matters to the older adult, mobility, or mentation across settings of care.
• Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat, and manage dementia, depression, and delirium across settings of care.
• Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day to maintain function and do what matters.

Bassett Healthcare Network earned the initiative’s Committed to Care Excellence designation in 2023 after demonstrating reliable practice of the 4Ms in all five of Bassett Healthcare Network’s hospitals. Now, during the 18-month collaborative, Bassett Healthcare Network will build on its progress and test changes to ensure that the 4Ms are provided equitably as a standard practice as older adults receive care across its entire system.

“We are honored to have Bassett Healthcare Network participating in this collaborative and applaud their dedication to equitably delivering age-friendly care as older adults and their family caregivers receive care across their practices, hospitals, and nursing homes,” says Leslie Pelton, MPA, Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

“This is an exciting and ambitious endeavor and a testament to the increasing importance of the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement as we prepare our health systems and workforce to provide excellent care to the growing older adult population.”

Since 2018, the movement has recognized 3,907 care settings as Age-Friendly, benefiting 3.29 million older adults who have received age-friendly care centered around what matters to them and their families. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

About Bassett Healthcare Network

Bassett Healthcare Network is an integrated health system that provides care and services to people living in a 5,600 square mile region in central New York. The organization includes five corporately affiliated hospitals, over two dozen community-based health centers, more than 20 school-based health centers, two skilled nursing facilities, and other health partners in related fields. To learn more about services available throughout the Bassett Healthcare Network, visit www.bassett.org. Follow Bassett on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn. Bassett Healthcare Network is an equal opportunity provider and employer.