More than half of long-term care residents in skilled nursing facilities made at least one emergency room visit in 2006. A quarter had two or more. Even more troubling, 38 percent were admitted to the hospital at least once that year, and nearly half were admitted twice or more. In all, one-quarter of all hospitalizations for nursing home residents were potentially preventable. These very [...]
The other day, Josh Wiener, who is one of the nation's experts on long-term care, presented three papers on certified nursing assistants (CNAs) in nursing homes. Josh and his colleagues at the consulting firm RTI International looked at quality of care, immigration, and injuries. And some of what they found may surprise you. The papers are available here (some may require [...]
Medicaid, which funds more long-term care supports and services than any other payer--$115 billion in 2008--is about to crash. Like a head-on train wreck, we can see it coming. The question is: What are we going to do about it? The Kaiser Family Foundation, in an extensive new survey of all 50 state Medicaid programs, tells the grim story. Medicaid is [...]
In an important new study, Lynne P. Snyder and Christopher Baker show the importance of energy assistance for elders living at home. The paper, Affordable Home Energy and Health: Making the Connections, was published by AARP. It is another example of why it is not enough for states to provide Medicaid waiver programs to help people receive long-term care at home. Without additional [...]
Among the great challenges we all face as we age is where to live. We may be a bit too frail to stay in our suburban colonial, but are not nearly ready for assisted living, to say nothing of a nursing home. We could move to a traditional large retirement community such as a Leisure World, but that would mean moving to a [...]
Instead of admitting patients, hospitals are increasingly keeping them under "observation status." This decision results in lower Medicare payments to the hospitals and more out-of- pocket costs for patients. But it also means that Medicare is no longer paying for some admissions to nursing homes, and is instead shifting those expenses to residents and their families. What's going on? It is complicated. But here is [...]
I spent yesterday with more than a hundred elder care professionals at the Seven Acres senior care campus in Houston. For a while they listened to me, but for much of the time I had the opportunity to listen to them. And what I heard was striking, and an important addition to the HSC Foundation's recently published study based on listening to family caregivers. We [...]
What do family caregivers want? What do they need? Education and training. Respite care. And, most important, peer support. Those are the conclusions of the HSC Foundation, which, along with several partners, organized a series of 2009 listening session to hear what caregivers had to say. They were not necessarily caregivers of parents or other frail elderly family members, Some were caring for wounded vets, others [...]
An important new study finds that patients with metastatic lung cancer who received early palliative care both lived longer and reported a better quality of life than similar patients who had only standard cancer treatment. Palliative care focuses on treating symptoms, although, unlike hospice, patients may still receive treatment for their terminal disease if they wish. Palliative care also coordinates [...]
What will our growing ability to identify Alzheimer's Disease years before a patient shows full symptoms mean for the U.S. system of voluntary long-term care insurance? The New York Times reported this week that a new test using spinal fluid can accurately identify Alzheimer's a decade before it becomes full-blown. With some patient groups, the technique--which is already commercially available--can identify future onset of the [...]