« The Dual Agenda: October 16, 2014 Issue
Noteworthy News
CMS Holds Listening Session on Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program
CMS held a webinar in early October on its Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program (IAP). The IAP is a new technical assistance program aimed at improving health and health care for Medicaid beneficiaries by supporting states’ efforts to accelerate new payment and service delivery reforms. In its webinar, CMS shared information about the IAP, how it connects to other innovations including the dual eligible demonstration projects and discussed activities in its first focus area: Substance Use Disorders. CMS also solicited feedback from participants on the types of technical assistance and tools they would like, as well their ideas for potential program priority areas. Among the top named priority areas were behavioral health, long-term services and supports and payment reform.
NQF Announces New HCBS Quality Measurement Project
The National Quality Forum recently announced the start of a new, two-year project aimed at creating a framework for quality measurement to support people living in the community who are supported by home- and community-based services (HCBS). Through the project, NQF will:
- Create a conceptual framework for measurement, including a definition for HCBS;
- Perform a synthesis of evidence and environmental scan for measures and measure concepts
- Identify gaps in HCBS measures based on the framework
- Make recommendations for HCBS measure development efforts
NQF will convene a multi-stakeholder committee to lead the work of the project. Committee deliberations are expected to begin in early 2015 with final recommendations slated to be released in August or September 2016.
When a Family Caregiver Also Becomes a Patient
In a “Narrative Matters” column of the latest edition of Health Affairs, author Suzanne Geffen Mintz describes her experience of being a family caregiver who unexpectedly has to care for herself, as well as her husband. In this moving and informative essay, she describes how her own sudden injury thrust her into a complicated situation in which it became difficult for her to take care of her husband, yet challenging to pay for aides to take over her usual caregiving activities. Mintz, a longtime advocate for families living with multiple chronic conditions, points to several policy changes that could assist patients and family caregivers:
- Family caregivers should be documented in the medical records of their loved ones, as well as their own, and should be recognized as members of their loved one’s care team
- Clinical teams should assess caregivers’ abilities and provide education, training, and support to allow them to be as effective and efficient as possible and to protect their own health
- Care plans should be based on patient and family goals
- Patients with multiple chronic conditions and their primary caregiver should be viewed as a single unit of care, reflecting the interwoven nature of their relationship and the impact of one person’s situation on that of the other