Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) staff and project partners convened on June 10th to share progress updates and reflections on year two of the three-year Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative project. As part of the annual site evaluation with lead funder The John A. Hartford Foundation, the convening provided an opportunity to showcase the ongoing collaborations between nursing homes and schools of nursing, the spread of Age-Friendly Health Systems in nursing homes, and schools’ innovative approaches to teaching gerontological nursing.
David Kelley, MD, MPA, chief medical officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services’ Office of Medical Assistance Programs, served as the external evaluator for year two of the grant. Dr. Kelley and The John A. Hartford Foundation’s senior program officer Jane Carmody, DNP, MBA, RN, FAAN, both joined the meeting in-person at the JHF office.
JHF staff shared highlights of the past year and the cumulative achievements by the end of the second of three years including:
- Engagement: The Collaborative has engaged 273 nursing homes (out of the goal of 400) and 26 schools of nursing (out of the goal of 30) across Pennsylvania, in addition to 29 states (out of the goal of 6) that have expressed interest in the initiative.
- Program Updates: The team launched a new coaching process to support individual schools of nursing and nursing homes in PA with their academic-practice partnerships and implementation of the Age-Friendly 4Ms.
- Working with Partners to Enhance Spread:
- Pennsylvania Association of Directors of Nursing Administration and Pennsylvania Higher Education Nursing Schools Association have recruited new nursing homes and schools of nursing participants; St. Vincent College has started a new nursing home partnership, and Penn State Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing’s is spreading the initiative across their many campuses.
- The PA Long-Term Care Learning Network, also managed by JHF, provided Age-Friendly Health Systems weekly webinars to the state’s 500+ nursing homes through nine webinars in Q1 2025.
- Evaluation: The lead independent evaluator, Howard B. Degenholtz, PhD, from Pitt Public Health, provided an update on the analysis of nursing student and faculty surveys, nursing home staff surveys and site visits, and clinical data that will help evaluate the impact of the 4Ms on nursing home residents’ quality of care.
“The annual site visit allowed our team and partners to showcase the incredible progress we’ve achieved together over the past year,” said Nancy Zionts, MBA, chief program and strategy officer at JHF and the principal investigator for the project. “While we continue to fine tune different aspects of the project, the PA Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative has shown significant potential to demonstrate the value of positive, mutually beneficial partnerships between nursing homes and schools of nursing, improve the care for residents today while supporting and developing the workforce for tomorrow.”
Helen Burns, Ph.D., Inaugural Director of Nursing at St. Vincent College, shared during the site visit how joining the PA Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative has enhanced their nursing curricula and student experience.
“In fact, what we've done this past semester is created an independent study for one of our students to test this out at St. Anne home,” said Dr. Burns. “I just remember that when she walked out of the building, I picked her up after the clinical experience, she had the brightest smile on her face, and was so excited because she believed that she was prepared to go in and be able to work with these patients, and the positive feedback from the patients were that they accepted her as a provider, and that the residents were thrilled to have her presence. It sounds like a small thing. But for new students when they're first entering the profession, it's huge.”
This July, the PA Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative enters the third year of the grant period from The John A. Hartford Foundation. Goals for the year ahead include continuing to coach nursing homes and schools in Pennsylvania, furthering conversations with organizations outside of Pennsylvania that are interested in replicating the Collaborative and advancing the evaluation of the Age-Friendly 4Ms implementation in nursing homes.
Visit the PA Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative’s website to learn more.
