Leaders from Across Political Spectrum Release Consensus Recommendations for Reimagining Care for Older Adults

Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults produces actionable solutions for improving quality of life for older Americans through more comprehensive care and a greater range of options.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In a new report, Convergence Center for Policy Resolution released recommendations from its Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults. The report offers consensus solutions produced by leaders and experts who participated from across the political spectrum in a multi-stage convening. These unlikely allies propose changes to America's systems of care that reflect the unique needs and realities of aging adults today and in the future.

"Everyone deserves to age with security and dignity, but our current systems of care are woefully inadequate to meet the contemporary realities of this stage of life," said Convergence CEO David Eisner. "With these recommendations, leaders have created an actionable path toward realizing a system of care that works for older adults in America."

Recommendations from the report's findings focus on three major areas for improvement:

• Care Settings: Create a constellation of care settings with adaptable and viable business models, so that preferred options are available as people age.
• Caregivers: Ensure there are enough qualified direct and family caregivers to provide needed care and support.
• Funding: Adequately fund the system of care, with payment systems and other features that are aligned with the reality of aging.

"The recommendations in this report are not only a concrete blueprint for improving the lives of older adults," said Stuart M. Butler, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults team. "They are also the result of true collaboration among people who came to this process with very divergent interests and indicate which reform ideas can attract wide support."

Convergence served as a neutral third-party convenor for the Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults project ? the latest of its flagship Dialogues. Convergence Dialogues are inclusive and collaborative processes, informed by social science, in which diverse groups of leaders come together to find common ground, build trust, develop consensus solutions, and move forward in unlikely alliances to achieve constructive change on intractable issues. Convergence's proven methodology includes five phases: selection of a ripe, amenable issue, convening of a diverse table of divided leaders and doers, facilitation of trust-building across divides, generation of consensus recommendations, and delivering on-the-ground implementation, with the goal of societal impact by inspiring collaboration over conflict.

The Convergence Dialogue on Reimagining Care for Older Adults is proudly supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation and The SCAN Foundation. To learn more about the Dialogue, and to read the paper that summarizes findings during the assessment period and provides the frame around which the Dialogue has formed, please visit the project webpage.

Convergence is the leading organization building bridges across differences to address critical national issues. For more than a decade, Convergence has facilitated nonpartisan collaborations among leaders with fraught differences based on political, ideological, sectoral, identity-based and other factors to produce solutions that create meaningful change in the lives of millions of Americans. For more information, visit convergencepolicy.org.

The John A. Hartford Foundation, based in New York City, is a private, nonpartisan, national philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults. The leader in the field of aging and health, the Foundation has three areas of emphasis: creating age-friendly health systems, supporting family caregivers, and improving serious illness and end-of-life care. For more information, visit johnahartford.org and follow @johnahartford.

Supported by a grant from The SCAN Foundation - advancing a coordinated and easily navigated system of high-quality services for older adults that preserve dignity and independence. For more information, visit www.TheSCANFoundation.org 

SOURCE Convergence Center for Policy Resolution