The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

The John A. Hartford Foundation Business Innovation Award for 2017 was awarded at the recent annual National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A) national conference held in Savannah, Georgia. Dave Kelly, AAADSW’s Executive Director, was pleased to have the Agency recognized at the award ceremony for the nomination of AAADSW’s Care Coordination program. Director Kelly will be presenting the nomination plaque to AAADSW’s board at their regular meeting on September 28 at 1 p.m., at AAADSW’s Vancouver offices.

The award was inaugurated in 2016, as part of the Foundation's grant support of the Aging and Disability Institute, to acknowledge and celebrate the successes of Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) that are successfully partnering with the traditional health care world to improve the lives and care of older adults and people with disabilities.

The John A. Hartford Foundation 2017 Business Innovation Award aims to spotlight those CBOs that are taking bold actions to concretely move their organizations in the direction of integrated care. This work often entails a willingness to embrace new partners, processes, people, and payment systems. To live up to the "innovation" in the award's title, CBO nominees had to show how they have used new strategies to pursue and implement sustainable health care partnership models that are improving the quality of life for older adults and/or people with disabilities. Nominees were judged on a weighted scale based on four criteria: Partner in establishing new relationships with health care entities; Innovator in pioneering new business models; Achiever in improved integration and quality of life for older adults and/or people with disabilities; building sustainable funding models for the future; and Risk-taker in pursuing new approaches to doing business and aligning leadership and staff in new directions.

AAADSW’s Care Coordination program has achieved Washington State’s highest engagement rates with eligible clients in the SW Washington five-county area. According to Executive Director David Kelly, “Our dedicated care coordination staff have significantly enabled clients to improve their health through self-management of chronic conditions, which is directly related to positive health outcomes and cost savings.” AAADSW has played a significant role in realizing the recently-announced Washington State Health Home Program gross Medicare savings of $67 million over two years.

Kelly added, “I congratulate the 2017 Award winner, the Virginia Area Agencies on Aging - Caring for the Commonwealth (VAAACares), led by Bay Aging CEO Kathy Vesley-Massey. I also congratulate our Care Coordination group, along with all of our dedicated staff, who do the good work every day of being active members of our