The newest additions to PHI’s National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce:
Strengthening the Direct-Care Workforce: Preliminary Recommendations from a National Panel of Experts in Long-Term Care — This article, published in Public Policy & Aging Report, outlines numerous policy and advocacy recommendations made by a panel of long-term care experts. Some of the preliminary suggestions include: increasing the supply of direct-care workers by bolstering recruiting efforts; advocating for more intensive federal and state training requirements; and instituting higher standards of evaluation for direct-care workers.
The Impact of Worker Health on Long Term Care: Implications for Nursing Managers — This article affirms that that direct-care worker “presenteeism” — when a worker continues to go to work despite being sick or having a chronic health condition — is a greater drain on a provider’s overall productivity than absenteeism. The article, published in the May 2010 issue of Geriatric Nursing, suggests numerous ways that supervisors of direct-care workers can support their employees, thereby reducing presenteeism.
Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports: Key Changes in the Health Reform Law — This Kaiser Foundation policy brief outlines the ways that national health reform, signed into law in March 2010, provides states with additional options to expand home and community-based services (HCBS). Among the provisions are: an expansion of the HCBS State Plan Option, an extension of the Money Follows the Person demonstration program, incentives for states to rebalance their Medicaid long-term services and supports toward community-based programs, and an expansion of spousal impoverishment protections for participants in HCBS. In addition, the CLASS Act — a new voluntary long-term care insurance program — will help to offset Medicaid benefits for individuals who are dually eligible by offering additional private coverage for long-term care services and supports.
Fighting Their Way to Patients: Home Care Continuity in an Emergency Event — This feature article from the May 2010 issue of Caring describes the Visiting Nurse Service of New York‘s efforts to deliver home care to city residents during the 2005 transit-worker strike. The article emphasizes that good communication among workers and a well-defined emergency plan were crucial in getting home care workers out to clients’ homes for their regularly scheduled visits.
PHI’s National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce is a national online library for people in search of solutions to the direct-care staffing crisis in long-term care. It houses over 800 articles, reports, issue briefs, and fact sheets on the direct-care workforce.
– by Matthew Ozga
