Hebrew SeniorLife Honored for System-Wide Excellence by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has named Hebrew SeniorLife among the 14 health care systems recognized for Excellence in System-wide Spread, demonstrating care delivery through the 4Ms (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility) across multiple care settings.  

Between 2024 and 2025, IHI convened 30 U.S. health systems over 18 months in the Age-Friendly System-wide Spread Collaborative to embed the 4Ms across their organizations. IHI praises the collaborative systems for advancing deep learning about what it takes to spread the 4Ms across varied units and settings within their organizations.

“Your team’s participation in the collaborative has made a significant contribution to advancing our understanding of the scale and spread of age-friendly care in health systems. It has also resulted in more older adults receiving evidence-based care. We are grateful for your team’s commitment and hard work,” said Nana A. Y. Twum-Danso, MD, MPH, FACPM, chief impact officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

“Hebrew SeniorLife is honored to receive this recognition from IHI for the age-friendly care and for the leadership in modeling system-wide spread that we provide,” said Executive Vice President of Health Care, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Quality Officer Ernest I. Mandel, MD, SM. “Congratulations to Olivia Liff, MD, CMD, geriatric specialist, Hebrew SeniorLife; medical director, Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, to data analyst Uche Ekemezie, and to everyone at Hebrew SeniorLife for their outstanding work in allowing us to earn this honor.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population aged 65+ years is expected to nearly double over the next 30 years, from 43.1 million in 2012 to an estimated 83.7 million in 2050. These demographic advances, however extraordinary, have left our health systems behind as they struggle to reliably provide evidence-based care to every older adult at every care interaction. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and IHI, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, designed to meet this challenge head-on.

Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to:

• Follow an essential set of evidence-based practices
• Cause no harm
• Align with what matters to the older adult and their family caregivers

All collaborative teams will also be invited to join a new Learning and Impact Network launching in 2027. The network will build on the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement’s existing foundation of recognition, Action Communities, resources, and shared learning to provide an infrastructure for lasting national impact through scale, shared learning, and sustained improvement. 

About Hebrew SeniorLife
Hebrew SeniorLife is a national leader working to create a world where aging is defined by possibility, not limitation. We care for more than 4,500 older adults each day across seven campuses throughout Greater Boston, and offer support for families in the aging journey. Our services include in-home care, outpatient therapies, an outpatient memory clinic, short- and long-term inpatient care, hospice, independent and assisted living, and affordable housing with services. We conduct influential research on aging at our Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, which has a grant portfolio of $87 million, and train future health care workers at the Lunder CareForce Institute. Hebrew SeniorLife is a Harvard Medical School affiliate. Follow us on our blog, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.