Medicare's cost crisis: solutions are within our grasp.

As this collection of papers shows, Medicare faces serious future challenges as the population it serves grows larger and older in the coming decades. Variation in the way health care is provided--also known as process variability--is a major contributor to the rising costs that are threatening Medicare's long-term viability. If existing information technology (IT) and industrial operations tools were applied, process variability could be reduced, efficiency increased, and cost growth reined in. Health professionals trained in geriatrics could form the nucleus of such an organized effort to preserve access to Medicare.

Strategies to advance geriatric nursing: the John A. Hartford Foundation initiatives.

This article chronicles the efforts of the John A. Hartford Foundation to improve the health care of older adults by strategically investing $34 million in geriatric nursing programs nationally. It includes a brief background of the Foundation followed by a description of the Foundation's geriatric nursing programs and the lessons learned that could be relevant to a variety of audiences.

Decades of focus: grant making at the John A. Hartford Foundation.

Foundation grant making can play an important role in advancing the U.S. health agenda. However, given the scale of the health care system and the intractability of many of its problems, philanthropy must be guided by strategic thinking in pursuit of realistically achievable goals. This essay describes the grant-making process at one nationally oriented foundation as an example of how these challenges might be approached. We believe that greater clarity about this process can improve collaboration among foundations, help the public appreciate foundations' work, facilitate partnerships with grantees, and, most importantly, yield sustainable improvement in the problem being addressed.