Pioneer Network, a national organization leading the movement for radical change in the culture of long-term care, is launching the Small House Online Networking Initiative to bring together key stakeholders to explore the idea of community-based “small houses” for older adults.

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The final report’s executive summary
A research brief outlining the study’s findings (pdf)
The implementation manual (pdf)

Home health agencies that want to improve staff retention and client outcomes will find some unexpected results and useful lessons in a report recently posted to the US HHS/ASPE Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy website.

Home Health Aide (HHA) Partnering Collaborative Evaluation: Final Report (pdf) assesses the impact of an effort to truly incorporate home health aides into care teams. The initiative was implemented in 2003 by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) and several of its licensed agency partners.

“It’s working because the aides feel more involved in the team, and they appreciate that,” says Daisy Diaz, supervising coordinator for Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), one of the participating agencies. “They work hard, and it’s good for them to get acknowledged.”

It’s also good for the agency and its clients to get more regular and immediate input from the aides, Diaz adds. “They call us right away now to let us know about any issues with the patients. They also call the nurse.” Read the full story

AARP has published responses from Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to a series of questions about long-term care, health care reform, and other issues affecting older Americans. The three discussed in the long-term care section are:

1. Increasing consumer choice and control for people needing long-term care;
2. Improving standards and incentives for quality care; and
3. Providing family caregiving initiatives, such as respite.

AARP routinely surveys presidential and state-level candidates to let its members know where the candidates stand. In addition to submitting a written response, the candidates may check a box indicating whether they support or oppose the proposed public policy initiative. A third box shows AARP’s position. McCain provided narrative responses to the questions but didn’t check any of the boxes. Obama checked the boxes as well, aligning with AARP’s position on all three of the long-term care questions.

AARP’s 38 million members are a potent political force. They tend to pay close attention to issues that affect them, and they vote in big numbers.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org

ANCOR continues its advocacy work for direct support professionals (DSPs) with two announcements this month: It has selected the winners of its 2008 DSP TV Online video contest, and it has won the unanimous support of the U.S. Senate for its National Direct Support Professionals Week.

The six DSP TV Online winners — all both by and about DSPs and the people they work for – are now available for viewing on ANCOR’s website. (Above, see the winning video.) All six are full of heart. They convey the pride and joy dedicated DSPs take in their profession, the difference they make in the lives of the people they work with, and the mutual respect and affection that develop between workers and clients. They also contain calls for better pay and benefits, along with a lot of singing, dancing, and enthusiastic expressions of gratitude. ANCOR calls them “part of a greater effort to raise awareness of the workforce wage issue and give DSPs the ability to tell their stories in their own words, and as only they can.”

In addition, the U.S. Senate has recognized the week of September 8 as National Direct Support Professionals Recognition Week. (pdf) The unanimously approved resolution is timed to coincide with ANCOR’s annual Governmental Activities Seminar and its DSPs to DC event in Washington, D.C.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org

“There is now a consistent pattern of data showing that homecare workers receiving benefits have a lower rate of attrition and, therefore, a higher rate of stability,” says the latest report from the Los Angeles County In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program.

Impact of Health Benefits on Retention of Homecare Workers: Analysis of the IHSS Health Benefits Program in LA County (pdf) is a follow-up to four reports from 2003-2006, which showed that offering medical benefits to the IHSS home care workers reduced turnover.

The present study, a five-year longitudinal retention analysis, echoes those findings. It also teases out more detail, comparing work patterns for workers who enrolled in the benefits program with those who did not, identifying traits that predict who will enroll, tracking changes in enrollment over time, and more.

The findings are significant because “The success of any kind of in-home supportive services depends on having an experienced and well-trained and committed workforce – you can’t have people stay out of institutions if there’s no workforce to take care of them at home,” says Joanne Holland, a senior clinical specialist at RTZ Associates Inc. “It’s such important work, but it’s not a high-paying position. And a lot of people are able to stay in the work because of these health care benefits.”

The study found that nearly half (45%) of the workers who enrolled in the plan were still in the workforce at the five-year mark, compared with only about a third (35%) of those who were eligible for benefits but had not enrolled.

“The stability of the workforce means you have better workers because they’re been doing it longer,” adds Holland. “It also makes for better relationships with consumers, so it’s a better experience for them.” RTZ Associates wrote the report.

See below or visit PHI’s Health Care for Health Care Workers blog to read comments or add your own.

Elise Nakhnikian, PHI, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org

Whether you call it person-centered, person-directed, or just plain quality care, the goal is the same for everyone receiving or regulating long-term care services as it is for all conscientious care providers: Everyone wants care to be tailored to individual preferences and needs. Yet that common-sense goal can be surprisingly hard to achieve in our complex, technology- and medication-oriented, often understaffed health care system.

Many of the barriers that stand in the way are systemic – boulders that no one person can shoulder aside on his or her own. But a self-published, spiral-bound booklet created by an aging services specialist gets long-term care consumers closer to that goal by giving them a way to keep track of their vital information — and share it with direct-care workers and other health care professionals.

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