April 6, 2006 – PHI’s Michigan Policy Director, Hollis Turnham, has been appointed to the Michigan Long-Term Care Supports and Services Advisory Commission. The group is charged with helping Michigan improve its long-term care system in several ways, in part by improving the quality of direct-care jobs.
The commission was appointed to implement the recommendations of the Governor’s Medicaid Long-Term Care Task Force. Turnham facilitated that task force’s workforce development work group, whose Recommendation No. 8 calls for the state to “Build and sustain a competent, highly valued, competitively compensated and knowledgeable long-term care work force.”
“The task force recommendations lay out the link between quality of care and the quality of training, leadership, and compensation associated with careers in long-term care,” says Turnham. “Now the commission is charged with helping the department actualize those recommendations and our expectations for high quality.”
Turnham is one of 14 appointees to the advisory commission. She and two others – a representative of SEIU Local 79 and a representative of the Michigan Association for Homes and Services to the Aging – were appointed to represent direct-care workers. One of the other appointees represents the general public, three represent providers of Medicaid-funded long-term care supports and services, and the other seven represent primary and secondary consumers of long-term care supports and services.
“It is important to ensure that our state’s long-term care services remain the highest quality,” said Governor Jennifer M. Granholm in a February 14 news release announcing the appointments. “This commission will play a critical role in implementing recommendations from the state’s Medicaid Long-Term Care Task Force and will serve as an effective and visible advocate for improving the quality of our long-term care system.”
The commission will assist the Office of Long-Term Care Supports and Services, which is the sole developer of long-term care policy within Michigan’s Department of Community Health.
