Truven Health Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters)

This report describes the State of Pennsylvania’s Family Caregiver Support Program (FCSP), administered by the Department of Aging, that offers a comprehensive service package with specific funding and services for family caregivers. FCSP uses state & recently available federal funds to allow the caregiver to choose the services needed to help care for an older relative at home and provide financial assistance with out-of-pocket expenses. Early program evaluation found the services effective.

This Promising Practices Bulletin highlights a Consumer Outcomes Survey administered annually annually to a random sample of waiver participants by Family Care, Wisconsin’s Medicaid managed long-term care waiver. The State shares information garnered from the surveys with the Care Management Organizations and uses the information to monitor changes in outcomes over time.

This report provides information on a piece of Texas legislation which included a rider in the state’s 2001 appropriations act to promote independence and community integration for nursing facility residents. Originally called Rider 37, it allowed Medicaid funding to follow an individual moving from a nursing facility into the community.

The Promising Practices Bulletin highlights Independent Monitoring for Quality (IM4Q), one of Pennsylvania’s quality management strategies in its Developmental Disability programs. IM4Q consists of of an independent review team that is composed of individuals with disabilities, family members, and other concerned citizens who are independent of the services being reviewed.

The HCBS Promising Practices in Quality bulletin describes Michigan’s Mission-Based Performance Indicator System. The system provides comparative reports on the performance of Prepaid Health Plans (PHPs) in serving and supporting persons with developmental disabilities in Michigan’s Medicaid 1915 b/c Waiver. Performance measure data are used by the state to identify problems and serve as the basis for quality improvement activities.

Quality Improvement Process (QIP) is a survey administered to program participants in Indiana’s HCBS waiver and state-funded programs who are elderly or have a physical disability. It provides information on service delivery from the participant’s perspective, including consumer choice, timeliness, respectfulness, consistency and task performance. Results are used on an individual basis to identify and follow-up on incidents, as well as for providing feedback to providers on their performance.

This introduction to root cause analysis, and its adaptation to developmental disabilities systems, has been commissioned by the Human Services Research Institute (HSRI) in an effort to assist state DD program administrators enhance their risk management and quality improvement activities. It is designed to provide guidance on the use of root cause analysis to individuals charged with managing programs and larger systems that serve and support persons with developmental disabilities.

Direct-care worker associations can give individuals a means of gaining additional skills, accessing support and recognition, and networking with peers. They can also raise awareness to the value of caregiving work and help workers develop leadership skills needed to become involved in discussions about long-term care policy and workplace practices. The article provides a historical overview of associations, reviews successful models, and addresses ways to organize and sustain groups.

Wisconsin launched a new initiative called Family Care that redesigns its long term supports system by concurrently reducing its complexity & increasing participant choice. One of its most groundbreaking features is the way it concretely translates into policy the principle of “money following the person” by creating for program participants an entitlement to both community supports & institutional care. This report looks at how the state uses single point of entry & person centered services.

This Promising Practices Bulletin highlights the development and implementation of an internet-based centralized reporting system to report and track major/unusual incidents in the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. The system is used by county boards to report major and unusual incidents (MUIs) to the state, by the state to follow up on investigations and remediation related to MUIs, as well as for analysis of patterns and trends related to MUIs.