REGION – Vermont’s five area agencies on aging (AAAs) announce their new affiliation, called the Vermont Aging Network Consortium (VANC). Boards of directors from each of the AAAs have approved the affiliation.
This new consortium will positively impact the overall cost of health care by leveraging economies of scale, combining resources, and reducing duplication within the community-provider network of home- and community-based services. A focus on establishing future contracts with payers and healthcare systems is expected to further enhance financial sustainability for aging services as they evolve.
The Vermont Aging Network Consortium will be a separate, nonprofit entity within which the individual AAAs will remain active and independent nonprofits as they continue to serve clients in their communities. It will help the AAAs create a sustainable financial model of service by leveraging their strengths, their buying power, and their high-quality systems of service. The AAAs trade association, the Vermont Association of Agencies on Aging (V4A) will continue to separately serve as the lobbying, advocacy, and educational organization for the AAAs.
“We are coming together as AAAs to ensure we are prudent financial stewards for our future, which is the central focus of all of our strategic plans. Our mission is to serve more clients in the future, with a sustainable operations model at each agency, and this is a way to help us create an efficient and integrated system to help each other do just that,” says Susan Gordon, Vermont Aging Network Consortium’s board president.
This initiative will support the Vermont area agencies on aging as a unified entity providing a high standard of services throughout the state. It will promote the pursuit of best practices within our case management, nutrition, and caregiver support programs, to list just a few, and will strengthen the role of the AAAs as community partners in delivering critical services that reach a growing population of older Vermonters.
The leaders of the five AAAs have been diligently collaborating with their respective boards of directors to conclude agreements for the establishment of the consortium. This includes finalizing the governance structure through the formation of a new ten-member board of directors, and overseeing the recruitment process for the new VANC executive.