IHI Urges Hospitals to Join Age-Friendly Health Systems Movement as CMS Enacts New Age-Friendly Measure for 2025
Resources and practices made available by Age-Friendly Health Systems help hospitals comply with new quality measure
BOSTON, August 2, 2024 – The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has issued a call to hospitals to join the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement on the heels of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) enactment of a new Age-Friendly Hospital Measure. The action from CMS will help ensure that older adults receive high-quality care in the hospital, operating room, or emergency department.
Taking effect in 2025, the new quality measure builds on the success of the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, which popularized the 4Ms Framework (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility). “This structural measure seeks to ensure that hospitals are reliably implementing the “4 M’s”, and thus providing evidence-based elements of high-quality care for all older adults.” (CMS final rule, page 1426).
“Adoption of this measure marks a significant and much-needed shift in how we provide health care to the aging population,” said Kedar Mate, MD, President and CEO of IHI. “It is also an inflection point for the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement, which will now be able to leverage the power and impact of policy and payment models to scale 4Ms care.”
IHI invites hospitals to take action now to earn Age-Friendly Health Systems recognition in preparation for the 2025 CMS Measure. There are many ways to join the movement, including Action Communities that enable hospitals to accelerate reliable practice of the 4Ms in an active community of learners and testers.
Numerous resources and opportunities are available for hospitals and providers to learn more about Age-Friendly Health Systems and get started:
- Guide to Using the 4Ms in the Care of Older Adults in Hospitals and Ambulatory Care Practices
- Hospitals: What Does It Mean to Be Age-Friendly?
- How to be recognized as an Age-Friendly Health System
- Age-Friendly Health Systems Resources and News (including getting started guides)
The CMS Age-Friendly Hospital Measure credits multiple organizations, including IHI, the American College of Surgeons (ACS), and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), for collaborating “to identify and establish age-friendly initiatives based on evidence-based best practices that provide goal centered, clinically effective care for older patients.” According to the measure, “The collective evidence from these age-friendly efforts demonstrates that hospitals should prioritize patient-centered care for aging patient populations with multiple chronic conditions. With CMS being the largest provider of healthcare coverage for the 65 years and older population, proposing a quality measure aimed at optimizing care for older patients, using a holistic approach to better serve the needs of this unique population, is timely.” (CMS final rule, pages 1425-1426).
The measure has 5 domains – eliciting patient health care goals, responsible medication management, frailty screening and intervention, social vulnerability, and age-friendly care leadership – that cover all four elements of the 4Ms Framework. The new measure is included in the FY2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems final rule. For additional information, read this CMS Fact Sheet and announcement from The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Since the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement launched in 2017, nearly 5,000 care settings have been recognized as Age-Friendly Health System Participants, benefiting more than 3.75 million older adults who have received age-friendly care. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA). Hospitals and providers who want to learn more can contact AFHS@ihi.org.
About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent not-for-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. For more than 30 years, IHI has used improvement science to advance and sustain better outcomes in health and health systems across the world. IHI brings awareness of safety and quality to millions, catalyzes learning and the systematic improvement of care, develops solutions to previously intractable challenges, and mobilizes health systems, communities, regions, and nations to reduce harm and deaths. IHI collaborates with a growing community to spark bold, inventive ways to improve the health of individuals and populations. IHI generates optimism, harvests fresh ideas, and supports anyone, anywhere who wants to profoundly change health and health care for the better. Learn more at ihi.org.
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