Maine

Access to Recreation’s purpose is to expand opportunities for integrated recreational, social and cultural activities in Maine for people with disabilities by providing information to programs and to raise awareness and level of program and facility accessibility and to inform consumers about accessible locations and activities. The grantees have developed a resource guide for fitness facility managers, ran focus groups, produced reports, comment card, calendars, icons and keyword lists.

This document describes IDA, a proposed generic, virtual information service, supporting both operational (e.g., client service) and analytical needs for integrated data. In IDA, source data would stay with the agency that owns it and be made available to an end-user only when permitted by the owning agency. IDA responds to many of the persistent barriers to data integration that confront the State.

This website is the site for the Maine Quality Choices grant. Maine’s Work Group for Community-Based Living includes a broad array of consumer and state representatives from five departments (Transportation, Labor, Education, Human Services, and Behavioral and Developmental Services). The website offers information on the Work Group, Accessing Services, Community Living, Data Integration, Person-Centered Services, Quality Improvement, Workforce and a Project Index.

States face significant obstacles in diverting individuals from institutional settings. Throughout the long-term care system, there exists an institutional bias for placing people in institutional settings over HCBS settings. Most states have some form of nursing home diversion program however, these programs face several challenges. This paper outlines many of the challenges, details strategies, and offers resources.

This document compares 4 Area Agency on Aging (AAA) models on integrating access and services in CA, MA, OH, & ME. The programs each use AAAs as entryways to senior and LTC services. The sites differ in terms of the primary financing mechanisms and whether the effort was initiated at the state level and disseminated downward or at the local level and worked its way up. This report is 1 of 5 from the series Case Studies from the Aging Network: Health and Social Support Systems Integration.

The New England ADA & Accessible IT Center is one of ten regional disability and business technical assistance centers funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). The Center is a project of Adaptive Environments, Inc., a nonprofit organization. The website offers Publications & Resources, Technical Assistance & Training, ADA Audio-Conferences and the Access New England Newsletter.

To keep states abreast of Maine’s efforts to achieve comprehensive health policy reform, the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance has partnered with NASHP to chart the progress and implementation of the Dirigo Health Reform Act. There were multiple goals for this study and NASHP and LSPA identified five groups of key stakeholders to interview. This report presents the research of six focus groups.

To keep states abreast of Maine’s efforts to achieve comprehensive health policy reform, the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance has partnered with NASHP to chart the progress and implementation of the Dirigo Health Reform Act. This issue brief addresses benefit design of the health plan, DirigoChoice designed to provide Maine businesses that have 50 or fewer eligible employees, the self-employed, and individuals with an affordable, high-quality option for health coverage.

This report focuses attention on a growing issue facing the nation: how to support & sustain those who are the cornerstone of our LTC system—the dedicated families & informal caregivers. This national study is the first to examine publicly funded caregiver support programs throughout all 50 states. The report identifies key findings, describes state approaches to providing caregiver support services, offers state-by-state profiles, pinpoints challenges, & expands recognition of caregiver needs.

NCHSD held its 4th Annual National Fall Technical Assistance Conference for Medicaid Infrastructure Grantees. This year’s meeting featured pre-conference regional gatherings, a day-long session on building public-private partnerships with employers, updates from our CMS partners, and a series of state expert panel presentations. Attached are the Fall 2004 Conference Edition eNews with highlights and promising practices plus the conference materials and presentations from every session.