Age-Friendly Healthcare
Advocating for
Age-Friendly Healthcare
Tips and Resources for What Matters
Age-Friendly Healthcare is a framework for thinking about high quality healthcare as we age that is organized around the “4Ms” of age-friendly healthcare (what Matters Most, Mind, Mobility, and Medicine). It recognizes:
1) That the care we receive should be in line with our healthcare goals and preferences (what Matters Most).
2) That managing brain health (Mind) and our ability to be active and get around (Mobility) are key to our wellbeing as we age.
3) That the medicines we take should be supporting what Matters Most, Mind, and Mobility.
This guide is designed to help older adults learn about each of the 4Ms, identify next steps for making sure their healthcare is age-friendly, and resources for supporting health and wellbeing.
There are many resources throughout the state of Maine and nationally that you can access to help you learn more about the 4Ms, advocate for your own care, and take steps to be more healthy as you age.
- At the state level, organizations called Area Agencies on Aging are a great first resource for health and wellness programs that can help older adults build strength and mobility, maintain good nutrition, and support brain health.
- Maine healthcare agencies have developed tools for advance care planning that help to clarify our care wishes.
- There are a wealth of educational tools to help you understand ways for reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias and supports for individuals and their caregivers with these conditions.
In each of the 4Ms sections below, you will be pointed to educational resources and programs that are available to support age-friendly healthcare.
Because the 4Ms deal with important healthcare considerations, it’s important to involve your doctor in conversations about your care. This Institute for Healthcare Improvement publishes the My Health Checklist. This is a short tool you can use to clarify your own thoughts about what matters to you, mobility, mind, and medicine. The guide takes you through each of the 4Ms and helps you think about what is going well, what could be better, and what questions you have for your healthcare provider. This guide can help inform discussions with your primary care provider at your next appointment.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement certifies healthcare systems as being Age-Friendly. There are two levels of age-friendly recognition:
- To become a Level 1 participant, sites must have “completed a 4Ms Care Description to outline how it will assess, document, and act on all 4Ms at its care setting.”
- Care Excellence (Level 2) Recognition is attained when a site provides three months of data on the number of older adults receiving 4Ms care.
Making sure that healthcare providers know and align their care with my specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care, and across settings of care.
If medicine are necessary, use age-friendly medication that does not interfere with what matters to me, mobility, or mind.
Healthcare providers help to prevent, identify, treat, and manage dementia, depression, and delirium.
