As the Foundation moves forward with our new grantmaking strategy, we are continuing a blog series that highlights how our grantee partners are bringing this work to life in communities across California. Through their voices, we are exploring what it looks like to catalyze equitable change in health and social care systems and hear directly from older adults about the impact these efforts are having on their lives.
Too often, older adults and caregivers must navigate disconnected systems, repeating their stories, completing duplicative forms, and facing uncertainty after referrals. At the same time, community-based organizations (CBOs) who serve older adults and their caregivers are managing multiple online platforms, complex policy and programmatic requirements, and limited capacity. When systems don’t connect, the burden shifts to individuals.
As California advances major efforts like CalAIM and the California Data Exchange Framework, there is real momentum to improve coordination across sectors. But without intentional design, new requirements may unintentionally exclude or overwhelm CBOs that serve older adults and their caregivers.
Archstone Foundation and Connecting for Better Health hosted the Designing Better Data Sharing for Aging in Community: Lessons from a Community Design Studio
webinar to share outcomes and lessons learned from a 2025 Community Design Studio focused on how data sharing and care coordination can better support older adults and their caregivers. Access the webinar here using the password: 3@=4.AS9
“If there’s one thing that we hear consistently, it’s that aging should not mean navigating fragmented systems alone.”
-Carly Roman-Woo, Archstone Foundation
Community Design Studio: Centering the Human Experience
A Design Studio is a collaborative process in which participants come together for six weekly “sprints” to design personas and real-world workflows to better understand where systems fall short; keeping people, not technology, at the center of the work. In this Design Studio, community-based organizations serving older adults, a 211 referral agency, and a Medi-Cal Managed Care Plan collaborated on two user stories: 65-year-old Linda Peterson and 82-year-old George Tanaka. The user stories follow these personas on their care journey, highlighting the opportunities to improve data sharing for better health outcomes, such as automated notifications of a hospitalization, and the development of a shared care plan that is accessible to both health and social service providers.
The user journeys, scenarios, and diagrams produced in the Design Studio are publicly available on the Connecting For Better Health Sandbox, and can be used as examples for organizations serving older adults and their caregivers who are interested in adopting strengthened data sharing workflows.
How to Utilize Data Exchange in Your Work
Community-based organizations across California are increasingly participating in state and national models that necessitate some level of data exchange with health care partners. Organizations newly exploring what this may look like, and how data exchange can support older adults and their caregivers, can access many informational resources online.
- What is a QHIO, and how does it relate to my organization? A Qualified Health Information Organization (QHIO) is a state-designated health information exchange that can support secure data exchange. These intermediaries offer services and functions to support the sharing of health and social services information among participants. Learn more about the QHIOs here.
- How can my CBO get involved in these efforts? Connecting for Better Health is a statewide nonprofit coalition dedicated to improving health and social services data sharing in the state. All organizations are invited to join Connecting for Better Health’s twice monthly coalition meetings to learn more about data exchange efforts in California, and can access resources at connectingforbetterhealth.com.
- What is the Community Sandbox and how can I use it? The Community Sandbox empowers providers, CBOs, payers, and government entities of all readiness levels to learn, develop, and test data sharing workflows. The Community Sandbox includes self-serve testing tools available for public use to simplify and accelerate data sharing across California. Access the Sandbox, or watch a demo to learn more.
The Community Design Studio developed actionable resources that are intended to be adopted by community-based organizations and their partners, with the goal of ensuring California’s data exchange infrastructure reflects the unique needs of aging services providers.
About Connecting for Better Health
Connecting for Better Health (C4BH) is a coalition of providers, patient advocates, caregivers, health plans, technology innovators, and community-based organizations dedicated to advancing health and social data sharing to improve the health of all Californians. Our vision is that every Californian and their care team will have the information and insights they need to make care seamless, high-quality, and affordable.
