Data

The Alliance for Health Reform offered a briefing on Medicaid fundamentals, for those wanting to brush up on their knowledge as well as those new to the subject. Speakers included Senator Jay Rockefeller, Alliance for Health Reform, Ed Howard, Alliance for Health Reform, Diane Rowland, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured Rodney Whitlock, Senate Finance Committee Republican Staff, Alan Weil, NASHP The transcript, materials, webcast and evaluation are all available.

This report outlines the annual Medicare Advantage capitation rate for each Medicare Advantage payment area for 2006, and the risk and other factors to be used in adjusting such rates. Attached is a spreadsheet containing the capitation rate tables for CY 2006, a spreadsheet which shows the statutory component of the regional benchmarks and the National Per Capita Medicare Advantage Growth Percentage. The 2006 national per capita Medicare Advantage growth rate is 4.8 percent.

This brief User’s Guide is designed to accompany orientation and training sessions that will be provided to the statewide and regional Councils in Massachusetts that use the Q.A. report as a foundation for exploring how to use data as a quality tool. To use data effectively requires that users have a basic understanding of the benefits and limitations of data. That is the purpose of this guide and the training sessions that will be provided to Quality Council members.

This summary is of housing data for all civilian non-institutionalized people with a disability as well as the housing data for people without a disability, based 2000 Census data. Comparisons between households of people with a disability and without a disability will be made on areas such as: poverty level, number of people in household, tenure, utilities and vehicle ownership, mobile home ownership, number of bedrooms, home value, monthly owner costs and gross rent.

The sixth biennial edition of the AARP Public Policy Institute's databook, presents an overview of long-term care in each state plus the District of Columbia by using numbers, graphs, charts, and maps. Data includes each state's demographics, need for LTC and HCBS services, the number of LTC workers per thousand people aged 65 and over, urban average for private-pay home health aide wages, and CNA hours per resident day. Each state is compared with others through rankings and national averages.

The survey results highlight inconsistencies and gaps in training, testing, and other pre-employment requirements for nursing assistants. The results from the nurse aide registries are presented in a series of charts. The survey notes who pays for pre-certification training in each state, whether candidates are allowed to become certified by passing the test without undergoing training, whether nurse aides pay a fee to be licensed or certified, who does criminal background checks, and more.

A two-year study in Los Angeles County showed that offering health care coverage improves retention rates. This study tracked workers in the city’s In-Home Support Services program, which offers home-based care and services to consumers who direct their own care. The report includes many findings, including an initial study done showing that workers who enrolled in the health benefits program were more likely to be in the workforce at month 12 than workers who did not enroll.

Informal caregivers, primarily family, but also friends and volunteers, have been and continue to be integral to the system of providing critical assistance to persons age 65 or older who need long-term care. This Data Profile provides an overview of informal caregivers today compared to caregivers a decade ago. This brief also offers excellent data and charts that offer a pictorial overview of the changes.

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.

The Nevada Children with Special Health Care Needs conducted a 5 month multi-method needs assessment that describes demographics, universal needs and barriers families with children with special health care needs face. Completion of this needs assessment represents an opportunity for community input into the prioritization of needs design & implementation of positive changes to the system of care. The report also includes a summary of Selected States’ Service Delivery Models, tables & figures.