The New York Community Trust Awards Grant to FAIR Health to Disseminate Shared Decision-Making Tools and Resources for Older Adults in New York City

Grant Will Support Collaborations with Two Clinical Institutions to Use Tools with Older Patients and Family Caregivers at the Point of Care

NEW YORK, March 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- With a generous grant from The New York Community Trust (The Trust), the national, independent nonprofit FAIR Health has launched FH^® SHARE (Sharing Healthy Aging Resources and Education) NYC, a two-year, New York City-based initiative designed to disseminate educational tools that facilitate shared decision making and healthcare engagement among older patients and family caregivers. As part of the FH SHARE initiative, FAIR Health will engage two New York City-based clinical institutions that will use and help evaluate a set of shared decision-making and healthcare engagement tools and resources on FAIR Health for Older Adults (FAIRHealthOlderAdults.org) with older adults and family caregivers at the point of care.

Under FH SHARE NYC, FAIR Health is conducting outreach to clinical institutions serving older patients in the New York City metropolitan area, with the goal of identifying two institutions that will collaborate with FAIR Health to use clinically relevant shared decision-making tools and other resources at the point of care with older patients and family caregivers. As part of the collaboration with FAIR Health, clinical sites will receive stipends to offset administrative costs associated with their participation. Clinicians at the two sites will also receive support and assistance from FAIR Health's Clinical Liaison and provide feedback to help evaluate the use of the tools at the point of care.

With the grant from The Trust, FAIR Health will also disseminate and promote citywide the free tools and resources on FAIR Health for Older Adults, including a new Alzheimer's disease shared decision-making tool and section, which were developed under a current grant from The John A. Hartford Foundation. Available in both English and Spanish, FAIR Health for Older Adults offers a suite of shared decision-making tools with clinical and cost information for conditions such as hip osteoarthritis and type 2 diabetes; FH^® Total Treatment Cost tools, which show the total yearly cost involved for conditions such as heart failure and Alzheimer's disease; and educational resources such as checklists and FH^® Insurance Basics articles relevant to the care of older adults. These tools have received positive feedback from patients, caregivers and clinicians. At the end of the two-year program, FAIR Health will publish the findings in a report that will be widely disseminated among key stakeholders.

Shared decision making—the inclusion of patient preferences and values along with clinical options in discussions among patients, their caregivers (as applicable) and providers to reach treatment decisions—shows promise for engaging patients in healthcare decision making and lowering costs. Facilitated by decision aids that offer treatment options for specific clinical scenarios, shared decision making focuses on "what matters" to patients, aligning with one of the key elements in the 4Ms framework of age-friendly care. Under prior grant-funded initiatives, FAIR Health developed shared decision-making tools that combine clinical and cost information for a set of conditions relevant to older adults, seriously ill patients and minority communities. The tools—which also now include the new Alzheimer's disease shared decision-making tool with resources—are freely available on FAIR Health for Older Adults, an online resource developed with prior funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation.

FH SHARE NYC will build on FAIR Health's prior work and current initiative funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation, which involves collaborations with four recognized Age-Friendly Health Systems clinical sites. The four sites are using the shared decision-making and healthcare engagement tools and resources on FAIR Health for Older Adults. Early findings suggest that clinicians and patients alike find the tools useful for decision making.

The FH SHARE NYC initiative also notably builds upon all the past generous support of The Trust, including a 2019 grant awarded by The Trust that facilitated the development and 2020 launch of FAIR Health's first set of shared decision-making tools with cost information. These tools offer clinical and cost information for three scenarios relevant to patients with serious illnesses on a dedicated section of FAIR Health's national, award-winning consumer website, fairhealthconsumer.org. The grant was followed by invitations from additional funders to expand the breadth and reach of shared decision-making tools with cost information for older and minority communities and the healthcare providers who serve them.

Irfan Hasan, Vice President, Programs and Grants, at The New York Community Trust, said, "Now more than ever, older New Yorkers need the tools and resources to make informed health care decisions that align with their own values and preferences. The New York Community Trust is pleased to support FAIR Health's FH SHARE NYC initiative, which will get shared decision-making tools and other resources to older adults and their family caregivers to help them incorporate patient values and preferences with clinical evidence as they make important care decisions."

To access the free tools, educational content and resources for older adults, visit FAIR Health for Older Adults. To see the Spanish version, please click here.

To learn more about using the shared decision-making tools with their patients, clinicians can contact Gee Kim, FAIR Health Clinical Liaison, at [email protected].

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About FAIR Health

FAIR Health is a national, independent nonprofit organization that qualifies as a public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code. It is dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information through data products, consumer resources and health systems research support. FAIR Health possesses the nation's largest collection of commercial healthcare claims data, which includes over 50 billion claim records and is growing at a rate of over 3 billion claim records a year. FAIR Health licenses its commercial data and data products—including benchmark modules, data visualizations, custom analytics and market indices—to commercial insurers and self-insurers, employers, providers, hospitals and healthcare systems, government agencies, researchers and others. Certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as a national Qualified Entity, FAIR Health also receives data representing the experience of all individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare Parts A, B and D, which accounts for a separate collection of over 50 billion claim records; FAIR Health includes among the commercial claims data in its database, data on Medicare Advantage enrollees. FAIR Health can produce insightful analytic reports and data products based on combined Medicare and commercial claims data for government, providers, payors and other authorized users. FAIR Health's systems for processing and storing protected health information have earned HITRUST CSF certification and achieved AICPA SOC 2 Type 2 compliance by meeting the rigorous data security requirements of these standards. As a testament to the reliability and objectivity of FAIR Health data, the data have been incorporated in statutes and regulations around the country and designated as the official, neutral data source for a variety of state health programs, including workers' compensation and personal injury protection (PIP) programs. FAIR Health data serve as an official reference point in support of certain state balance billing laws that protect consumers against bills for surprise out-of-network and emergency services. FAIR Health also uses its database to power a free consumer website available in English and Spanish, which enables consumers to estimate and plan for their healthcare expenditures and offers a rich educational platform on health insurance. An English/Spanish mobile app offers the same educational platform in a concise format and links to the cost estimation tools. The website has been honored by the White House Summit on Smart Disclosure, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), URAC, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, appPicker, Employee Benefit News and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. For more information on FAIR Health, visit fairhealth.org.

Contact:
Rachel Kent
Executive Director of Communications and Marketing
FAIR Health
646-396-0795
[email protected]

SOURCE FAIR Health