The Age-Friendly Hospital Measure assesses hospital commitment to improving care for patients 65 years or older who receive services in the hospital, operating room or emergency department. This document provides information about the five age-friendly domains of the measure

This website houses information on the Age Friendly Hospital Measure, which aims to improve the care older adult patients receive.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient one should be seamless for patients. You have created a PAC to achieve this ideal. It's now time to hold your first meeting. Use this sample agenda to plan your initial meeting.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient one should be seamless for patients. Achieving this ideal requires collaboration among health care organizations, providers and patient advocates, including family members, in your community. Use this tool to identify partners you can rely on to improve transitions of care for patients in your health care setting.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient one should be seamless for patients. Achieving this ideal requires collaboration among health care organizations, providers and patient advocates, including family members, in your community. Use this tool to guide your efforts in creating such a collaboration in your health care setting.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient one should be seamless for patients. Achieving this ideal requires collaboration among health care organizations, providers and patient advocates, including family members, in your community. Use this tool to help you establish such a collaboration your health care setting.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient can be seamless for patients. You have created a PAC to achieve this ideal and held a kick-off meeting. Use this sample agenda for your second meeting. During this meeting, PAC team members can review data and brainstorm strategies for improving care transitions in your community.

Moving from an acute, inpatient care setting to an outpatient one should be seamless for patients. You have created a PAC to achieve this ideal and held two meetings. Use this sample agenda for your third meeting. During this meeting, PAC team members can determine next steps for completing actions identified in the PAC's implementation plan.

Does drinking alcohol increase the risk for Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia? This study in the May 23, 2024, issue of Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, examines results from both human and animal studies to determine whether chronic alcohol misuse increases the risk for various types of dementia, including alcohol-related dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Watch this one-hour recorded webinar to learn about identifying and developing partnerships with community-based organizations. Subject matter experts also discussed how to use data to support managing behavioral health conditions across the care continuum and to develop workflows between organizations to ensure appropriate handoffs.

Watch this one-hour recorded webinar to learn about the common barriers that hospitals encounter with patients with mental health conditions. Subject matter experts also discussed interventions for patients at risk for readmission and the strategies that one hospital used to better manage psychiatric readmissions.

The American College of Emergency Physicians offers strategies that can be used to help end the stigma related to people with substance use disorders who seek medical services in the emergency room.

Download this fact sheet from the TMF Quality Innovation Network to help patients better manage their Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

In this video, Dr. Erin Carlson, from The University of Texas at Arlington, discusses the root causes of disparities and inequities in the health care system that contribute to emergency department usage.

This Jan. 2, 2024, article from The Dallas Observer highlights the success of the RIGHT Care Unit, which consists of an interdisciplinary team of first responders and health care professionals who respond to 911 calls from individuals experiencing behavioral health crises across the Dallas metro area.

Listen and learn from nationally recognized experts in four, 15-minute podcasts about the importance and effectiveness of starting buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder in emergency departments.

This article examines recent research about how new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, can be used in a post-discharge patient engagement program. New technologies could address factors beyond social determinants of health (SDOH) and address emotional, behavioral and other barriers to recovery.

In this recorded, one-hour webinar, Jessica Wauson, from the American Heart Association, shares evidence-based guidelines for treating heart failure. Also featured: a review of the patient assessments and education tools that patients can use to successfully manage their condition.

This article summarizes a 2019 study that found that the population rate of emergency department visits related to substance use disorders was highest among Black non-Hispanic individuals. Understanding how this and other findings can help highlight potential inequities in care.

Read about the 30-day Care Transitions Intervention® (CTI®), which was created with reducing the number of preventable readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries.

Work with your department leadership team to complete the following assessment. Each item relates to care transition elements that should be in place for a program to improve care transitions within your facility. This Care Transitions Implementation Assessment is supported by published evidence and best practices.

The Process Improvement Discovery Tool helps Partnership for Community Health member hospitals provide safer patient care. The tool helps health care providers identify process improvement opportunities for reducing readmissions.

Research shows that more than 20% of Medicare beneficiaries discharged from a hospital to a skilled nursing facility will return to a hospital within 30 days, costing Medicare more than $4 billion per year. These returns are often due to potentially preventable conditions, such as dehydration, infections, medication errors, and unaddressed social needs. This toolkit provides an overview of care coordination best practices to avert hospital readmissions.

This webinar recording describes a hospital and community health center collaboration that works to address the underlying needs of the patients who are most likely to become frequent visitors to hospital emergency rooms. The goal is to improve their quality of life outcomes and reduce readmissions while supporting substance users in central Houston.

This May 16, 2023, recorded webinar features Matt Zavadsky, the chief transformation officer at MedStar Mobile Healthcare. Zavadsky, also an emergency medical technician, explains what it means to be a "mobile health care provider," which transforms the traditional role of emergency medical services into more than merely a conveyance method. If you have questions or want a copy of the handout, please contact us at communityhealth@tmf.org.

When you or a loved one gets sick or injured, and your health care provider's office is closed, you might immediately head for the emergency room. That may not be the best place for your care, however. Take a few minutes to review this resource and make a decision about where to go for care based on your symptoms.

This report, from the National Center for Health Statistics, shows that rates of Emergency Department (ED) visits for any mental health disorder were highest among non-Hispanic Black adults (96.8) compared with non-Hispanic White (53.4) and Hispanic (36.0) adults. Adults made an average of 774,508 mental health-related ED visits per year from 2018 to 2020, accounting for 12.3% of all ED visits made by adults.

On Jan. 25, 2023, TMF QIN-QIO specialists discussed strategies for reducing readmissions and increasing patient and family engagement. The attendees also learned about care transitions, the TMF Patient and Family Engagement Network and the Partnership for Community Health Network.

Download this list of interventions you and your hospital staff can use to help decrease emergency room visits from Medicare beneficiaries at short-term hospitals, critical access hospitals and inpatient psychiatric facilities.

Work with your department leadership team to complete the following assessment. Each item relates to care transition elements that should be in place for a program to improve care transitions within your facility. This Care Transitions Implementation Assessment is supported by published evidence and best practices.

The TMF Quality Innovation Network, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, designed this change package to provide strategies to improve the quality of care transitions.

The American Academy of Family Physicians created this handout to help care teams understand social determinants of health and how to develop a team-based care approach to identify specific patient needs and how to address those needs.

The American Academy of Family Physicians created this two-page fillable PDF document to allow a care team member to work directly with a patient to document the social determinants that may influence their health needs.

The AAMC created this five-page checklist for care team members to use to help prompt patients to provide more information about themselves, which can help identify areas of need that have historically not been addressed in the traditional clinical setting.

Download this infographic to view what The Joint Commission considers are the eight tips for high-quality patient hand offs.

This one-page document the Where for Care campaign developed helps guide the reader through developing a care plan before an actual medical emergency takes place.

Download this one-page list of interventions you and your hospital staff can use to help reduce 30-day hospital readmissions.

Trauma-informed care acknowledges that understanding a patient’s life experiences is key to potentially improving engagement and outcomes while lowering unnecessary utilization.

Internists/primary care physicians and nurses: Provide this document to your patients, which includes more information to help them ascertain when to call your office for help or when to go to the emergency room for a range of conditions, including shortness of breath, heart failure, complications with diabetes and more. Patients: Use this document to help determine when to call your physician for help or when to go to the emergency department for assistance.

Internists/primary care physicians and nurses: Provide this document to your patients, which includes more information to help them ascertain when to call your office for help or when to go to the emergency room for a range of conditions, including shortness of breath, heart failure, complications with diabetes and more. Patients: Use this document to help determine when to call your physician for help or when to go to the emergency department for assistance.