Hartford Foundation Reports Success Of NLN’s Advancing Care Excellence For Seniors Program (ACE.S)

The National League for Nursing’s Advancing Care Excellence for Seniors (ACE.S) is committed to preparing nurses so that they can provide high quality and culturally sensitive care to older adults with dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. According to a recent report by the John A. Hartford Foundation, one of the program’s original funding partners, the program has been a major success.

This project began in 2007 under the leadership of Elaine Tagliareni as a pilot program at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). Tagliareni is a professor, Independence Foundation Chair in Nursing and she joined the NLN as chief program officer and director of the NLN Center for Excellence in the Care of Vulnerable Populations. The center operates ACE.S and several companion programs that have grown out of the ACE.S model.

“As soon as we became involved in the ACE.S project, we knew we had a winner. As the NLN’s president during ACE.S’ ‘infancy,’ Elaine shared her wisdom, vision, and experience in this emerging field of specialized nursing education,” said the CEO of NLN, Beverly Malone, PhD.

“On behalf of the NLN, I express gratitude for the Hartford Foundation’s faith in the project from its inception. They were right to believe as reflected by this very positive ‘report card’ in which the entire ACE.S team may take exceptional pride,” stated Marsha Howell Adams, PhD, the NLN president and dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

In addition to the Hartford Foundation, Independence Foundation of Philadelphia and Laerdal Medical Corp also supported the CCP pilot. Several major grants were used to fund multiple years of research. The grant from the Hearst Foundations includes an award for those that attend the program at state-sponsored workshops and has also created Twitter chats and other social network and digital marketing tools to engage more people and increase ACE.S’ reach. The grant from the Independence Blue Cross Foundation of Pennsylvania aims to educate clinical nursing staff and faculty and provide better instruction to students. The MetLife Foundation grant is focused on supporting and improving care for those suffering with Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related diseases.