The quality of care for the frail elderly and adults with disabilities and the assistance available for their family caregivers varies widely among the states. Now, for the first time, researchers at AARP have tried to measure where you can get the highest quality care. And the differences among the states are even more dramatic than I thought. A handful, including Minnesota, [...]
Next week, I'll be speaking to faculty and others at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine on the importance of fully integrating long-term care services and supports with medical care. On May 23, I'll be delivering the same message to a large non-profit health system that includes more than two dozen hospitals. Physicians and health system adminstrators are beginning to get it: [...]
I recently had the pleasure of speaking to NICHE, (Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders) a joint venture of the Hartford Institute and the New York University School of Nursing dedicated to improving the quality of geriatric nursing. NICHE understands that caring for elders is not like caring for younger patients, and it has developed new techniques to both assess [...]
Hospital readmissions are bad for patients—especially seniors who may already be weakened by multiple chronic disease. They cost tens of billions of dollars. They are not even good for hospitals (at least not top-quality facilities that regularly fill their beds). About one in five Medicare patients are readmitted within 30 days, and one-third within 90 days, according to a New [...]
As Medicaid budget pressures grow, more states are turning long-term care over to private managed care companies. USA Today reports that six states now require both frail elderly and younger adults with disabilities to enroll in insurance-run Medicaid managed care plans. Another 10 states are planning to either create or expand these programs, according to the story. The reason, of course: money. States pay the [...]
For seniors trying to manage multiple chronic disease, moving from one care setting to another can literally be a matter of life and death. That's why it is so important that health providers--doctors, nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and home care agencies--work together to make sure that those moves happen safely. Too often in our poorly coordinated health and long-term care systems, those [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Those of us who are caring for our parents or other loved ones know how tough it is. The emotional, physical, and financial burdens are sometimes overwhelming. Bathing your father or changing his adult diaper puts both of you in a new, uncomfortable, and difficult world. But at a Syracuse University long-term care conference I attended last Thursday and Friday, Carol Levine reminded me about the medical expertise caregivers [...]
Nobody wants to see chronically-ill elderly patients making repeated trips to the emergency room. These visits are obviously bad for the patients themselves, who often suffer stress, disorientation, and high risks of infection. They are no good for Medicare, which has to pay the bill: The estimated cost of these readmissions is $17 billion annually. And, despite the common perception, they may not be good for hospitals, which are [...]