The John A. Hartford Foundation has announced two grants totaling $3.7 million in support of efforts to improve healthcare networks and delivery.

The New York City-based foundation awarded a grant of more than $2 million over three years to the Partners in Care Foundation to develop prototype networks in Southern California and Massachusetts that link community-based social service agencies to the healthcare sector.

To that end, PICF will develop exportable tools and lessons that can be shared with seven other agency networks supported by the Administration for Community Living and will provide technical assistance to facilitate collaboration among social service providers, healthcare providers, and insurance plans in Southern California. Elder Services of Merrimack Valley and Hebrew SeniorLife will act as subcontractors to develop a similar collaborative in Massachusetts. The grant is part of a three-year, $4 million project to establish an integrated healthcare and social services delivery system, with additional support from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation and other funders.

The foundation also announced a four-year, $1.6 million grant to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI) to improve the quality of jobs for direct-care workers, who provide an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the fee-based, hands-on, long-term care and personal assistance received by older Americans and people with disabilities. The grant will leverage a $1.5 million award from the F.B. Heron Foundation as part of a $9 million Philanthropic Equity Campaign, a joint effort by Heron and the Hartford Foundation to improve the jobs of more than 200,000 direct-care workers annually.