Newsletter, periodic publication

The Maximizing Independence (MIND) at Home program at Johns Hopkins University provides home and community-based care coordination for individuals and families living with dementia. Through focus groups with Black caregivers, researchers at Johns Hopkins aimed to better understand the unique needs of Black patients and families living with dementia, identify opportunities to improve care delivery, and understand caregivers’ perception of the MIND at Home program. This blog post from The Playbook explains the MIND at Home program and how dementia care coordination programs can better support Black patients and their families.

Each September ACL celebrates the nation’s senior centers. The 2022 National Senior Center Month theme, is Strengthening Community Connections, and highlights the valuable role senior centers play in the community through connecting older adults with critical programs and services. In this blog post, ACL recognizes senior centers as partners in supporting the health and independence of older adults.

With support from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, CHCS brought together patients, providers, researchers, and clinicians to develop a Patient-Centered Complex Care Research Agenda. The agenda aims to embed a consistent focus on what matters most to patients into complex care research design and will be released in Fall 2022. This blog post shares lessons for including patient perspectives to guide research priorities, based on CHCS’ experience creating a patient and family advisory board and a research community to help inform the Research Agenda.

This series of three AARP Public Policy Institute and Mathematica Spotlight reports analyze SNAP participation among older adults and the policies that affect it.

This Better Care Playbook profile of the SASH model is part of an ongoing series, In the Field: Spotlight on Complex Care Interventions, that is highlighting how organizations are implementing evidence-based and promising innovations to improve care for people with complex health and social needs.

Experts at The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and the state of Tennessee say families in poverty with disabilities in Tennessee and nationwide face difficulty both accessing and utilizing long term services and supports (LTSS) in both rural and urban areas. This article breaks down issues of accessibility across the country by discussing how affordable housing, transportation, and social determinants of health affect individuals differently based on their ability and region.

To best meet the health-related needs of Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries, and address equity within these programs and services, Medicaid leaders should reflect the varied populations they serve. Medicaid leaders are more likely to relate to the needs and challenges of their members when they share the identities of enrollees. This blog post and infographic from CHCS highlight key strategies for diversifying the Medicaid leadership pipeline, drawing from a CHCS report developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In this Health Affairs blog post, Nancy Archibald, MHA, MBA, CHCS’ Associate Director for Federal Integrated Care Programs, outlines perspectives from state Medicaid officials on the federal policies that have advanced Medicare-Medicaid integration, and areas where they believe additional federal policy actions are needed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many providers to transition to telehealth when it became the only way patients could access health services. Medicaid agencies now have an opportunity to support phone-based telemedicine in primary care beyond the pandemic, and many are already doing so. This blog post explores strategies that Medicaid agencies can use to suport audio-only telehealth moving forward, including extending payment parity for telehealth visits and using value-based payment models.

This March 2022 News in Health issue explores various components of rural health in America. The issue explains how geography, access to care, and telehealth impact health outcomes for individuals in living in rural areas, and provides tips for how to build healthier communities.