Proposal Presented for the Master Plan for Aging (#81)
Disclaimer
Throughout the MPA process, more than 100 proposals were developed thanks in particular to thousands of hours of work by external stakeholders and members of the public. These proposals and the MPA Council commentary are being submitted to the Governor and shared with policymakers and the public to inform policymaking. These proposals represent a starting point for discussion. Further discussion is necessary between relevant state agencies and stakeholders to both refine these proposals and assess which may be appropriate to adopt and implement.
Summary
Establishes a partnership among NYSOFA, DOH and the DOS to create local teams that would facilitate better coordination across health systems, including those overseen by OPWDD, OMH, OASAS, and Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS), local health departments, primary and specialty providers, and AAAs. This would include a requirement that initial demonstrations be located in counties that have at least one health system certified as an Age-Friendly Health System.
Justification
A healthy aging approach seeks to address these factors in a collaborative way across government in order to improve long-term health and wellness outcomes and thus, improve the aging experience. New York has taken the foundational steps to achieve this, but much work remains to integrate medical, public health and community-based care. The Ecosystem Demonstration Pilot is needed to address health service referral, delivery and chronic condition management to establish better coordination of care and referral networks across health systems, local health department, primary and specialty providers, and Area Agencies on Aging. To promote holistic prevention and healthy aging across the lifespan.
Full Proposal
- NYSOFA through partnership with DOS and DOH would directly or indirectly arrange for the provision of technical assistance and an educational series for inter-disciplinary teams of local government partners to develop an ecosystem of community service and health service referral and delivery promoting holistic prevention and healthy aging across the lifespan. To ensure a high level of engagement and demonstrated capability to sustainably implement, participants would be limited to county-based teams that have a track record of success with the implementation of healthy aging programming including those counties that received funding through the Age-Friendly NY/Smart Growth Community Planning grant program. This will mean that a requirement will be to have teams from counties that have been, or have localities therein that have been, certified as an Age-Friendly State or Community by AARP as well as contain at least one health system that has been certified as an Age-Friendly Health System by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
- Selected teams would then be tasked with collaboratively fulfilling requirements under Public Health Law (Section 2802B – Health Equity Impact Assessment; Section 2803L – Community Service Plans) to better coordinate and establish referral networks and systems of care among the health systems, local health department, primary and specialty providers, and AAAs to address identified underlying public health and chronic condition management. Additionally, these teams would be responsible for coordinating with and implementing actions that further Master Plan for Aging and Prevention Agenda priorities in their communities.
This proposal is focused on primary prevention.
MPA Council Commentary
This proposal is categorized as long-term. Proposed first steps for implementation could include coordination of DOH and other agency partners to determine messaging and the procurement of resources, subject to the annual budget process and the availability of resources. Next steps could include identifying counties that have a certified age-friendly system. If successfully established, further action may be taken to instill age-friendly and healthy aging approaches into all agency policies. Proposed metrics for evaluating implementation success could include a number of established networks among health systems.