The findings of the December 2005 Commonwealth Fund Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey on Long-Term Care Issues show both the promise and challenge of the program: of the 250 responding experts, 27 percent were familiar with the nursing home culture change/resident-centered care movement, and 36 percent were "somewhat" familiar with it, but 37 percent were not at all familiar with the
movement. These findings, along with those of the external review, indicate that to make a real impact, a foundation must expect to remain engaged with knotty issues such as nursing home quality over an extended period.
As a result of the program review, the Fund's Board concluded to: 1) continue the Frail Elders program; 2) maintain the current focus on residential long-term care quality and efforts to further spur the culture change/resident-centered care movement; and 3) fund the program at approximately $1.3 million annually for the next five years. The Board further advised that program priorities should be as follows: 1) sponsor development of models, tools, and practices, 2) work on policy initiatives; and 3) increase communications and dissemination activities.
At the April 2006 Board of Directors retreat, the Board also examined a comprehensive "performance scorecard" for the foundation, details of which are discussed in the "
Executive Vice President/COO's Report" in this
Annual Report. An important feature of the scorecard is the Fund goal of initiating development of at least four "institution stretching" products annually and of making the necessary investments for accomplishing them. In the 2005-06 fiscal year, the foundation's "stretch" goals and achievements were as follows: development of the "Medicare Extra" plan for a comprehensive Medicare benefit, which was published in
Health Affairs and discussed with legislators;
(1) the expansion of the Harkness Fellowship program to include Germany; partnership with the Netherlands to expand the International Health Policy Survey to that country; Web site redesign and inauguration of E-Forums on the Fund's Web site; and establishing a strong voice in the debate over whether health savings accounts are a solution to the nation's health care coverage and cost problems.
(2) (3) (4)
Stretch initiatives for 2006-07 include the following: release of the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, discussed in the "
President's Message" of this
Annual Report; revamping of the Frail Elders program in accordance with the conclusions of the recent Board review; partnership with
Modern Healthcare on the Fund's
Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey, aimed at enrichment of the bimonthly survey and enhanced communication of findings; launch of a congressional health care legislative "policy watch" (analysis and modeling of the leading health care bills in Congress); development of the interactive
ChartCart feature on the Fund's Web site, which aims to make available to users, at no cost, virtually all graphical data produced by the Fund and its grantees, and in a format that facilitates the use of research data for practical applications; and partnering with the Robert Bosch Foundation to fund the German Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy.
