Aging Well — Taking Care While Aging

By Public Relations Specialist Esther Robertson

Across the world, Indigenous communities revere Elders as culture bearers, wise counselors, and leaders. Honoring and caring for Elders is an Alaska Native and American Indian value.

Integrated care teams collaborate with customer-owners as they age to create plans to help maintain independence and health.

Southcentral Foundation supports the health and wellness of Elder customer-owners. The Aging Well Initiative builds on SCF’s foundation of robust services and resources to optimize care for Elder customer-owners. This includes standardizing care delivery, improving communication across the system, and encouraging customer-owners to partner with their integrated care teams to create care plans tailored to their specific health priorities.

Integrated care teams work to support the health and wellness needs of customer-owners in a holistic, customer-driven, and evidence-based approach.

“Health care often becomes more complex as we age,” Senior Medical Director Dr. Verlyn Corbett said. “Primary Care is working to improve the way we provide care to adults as they age. The 4Ms framework — Medication, Mentation, Mobility, and What Matters — helps to identify core elements of effective care. Much of this is already incorporated into our services, but this framework allows for a more intentional and efficient approach to the care of older adults.”

Assistance is available to navigate age-related factors, such as healthy eating, life transitions, hearing, caregiver support, and more. This is accomplished in part by intake questionnaires, meeting and talking with aging adults about health topics, and connecting them with SCF services that match their needs. There are many options on how wellness can be achieved for some, guidance received through the initiative is helping ensure Elders receive the very best care available.

For more information about the Aging Well Initiative, talk to your primary care provider or click here.