PHInational.org

Three brief stories on direct care:

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High Staff Satisfaction Saves Money, Writes PHI’s Misiorski

Susan Misiorski, PHI national director of training and organizational development, blogs in her monthly column in Long-Term Living about how investing in employee satisfaction is a cost saver to providers.

“Employee Satisfaction: A Critical Factor in the Business of Caregiving” and past columns by Misiorski are available on the magazine’s website.

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Alzheimer’s Association Offers Newsletter

The Alzheimer’s Association, New York City Chapter (AlzNYC), is offering a free monthly newsletter, ADvancing Care, to people who work in nursing homes and other residential care settings as well as to the families and friends of those who reside there.

To subscribe and read the current and past issues, visit the AlzNYC website.

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Documentary on Disability-Rights Movement to Air

On October 27, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is premiering “Lives Worth Living” on Independent Lens.

The documentary film is about the history of the decades-long struggle for equal rights for people with disabilities.

To learn more about the film and air times, visit the PBS website.
 
– by Deane Beebe

An essay by Michael Ogg published in the January 2011 issue of Health Affairs provides a moving personal account of how two personal care assistants make it possible for him to live home alone independently in New Jersey.

Ogg, a 56-year-old retired physics professor who is severely disabled by multiple sclerosis (MS), details his day in “Running Out of Time, Money, And Independence?” in the health policy journal’s “Narrative Matters” section.

He describes how Nelita Dossous, his personal care aide, provides an invaluable hour and a half of care each morning, getting him up, toileted, bathed, and dressed; she also helps to get him breakfast, do laundry, and perform other household chores. The second aide, Louis Serge Michel, comes in at night and does “much of what Nelita did earlier, but in reverse,” Ogg writes.

During the day, Ogg manages the best his can on his own. He could use much more help but cannot afford it.

He recounts two emergency situations that occurred during the day — an incident where he spilled hot soup on himself and a wheelchair malfunction that left him in a maximum tilt — and how the home care agency immediately sent someone over to help.

Concerns About Cost

What most concerns Ogg is how he will be able to continue to pay for the personal care aides, whom he has grown to know and trust. His aides are very familiar with his needs and are able to attend to them efficiently and precisely.

He says that it is too late for him to be helped by the CLASS Act, the voluntary federal insurance plan established under the health care reform law to help people purchase long-term services and supports, but that it will help others in his situation down the road.

In “The Miracle Workers,” published in The New York Times‘s “New Old Age” blog on January 6, Jane Gross reports on Ogg’s essay and writes, “The value of the home aide’s work is rarely described in such eye-opening detail.

– by Deane Beebe

A study published in the January 2010 issue of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that older Americans face increasing rates of disability. Read the full story

Judge Nicholas Garaufis

A judge has ruled that the State of New York was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by warehousing more than 4,000 people suffering from mental illness in large, privately run “adult homes” in New York City.

The ruling is being seen as a major victory by disability advocates. Read the full story

On July 28 the U.S. House of Representatives passed what the Military Times described as “landmark legislation to train family members to provide care for severely wounded veterans — and pay them for it” (“House passes bill to train, help caregivers,” July 28). Read the full story

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A full implementation of the home and community-based care principles embodied in the landmark Olmstead Supreme Court decision will achieve two of the chief goals being pursued in the current push for national health reform, namely, saving money and improving health care outcomes. This is the claim advanced in “Still Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Olmstead” (June 24, 2009, pdf), a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Read the full story