In 2012, the California Long-Term Care Education Center, which is now called the Center for Caregiver Advancement (CCA), received a three-year, $11.8 million Health Care Innovation Award from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Innovation Center. This was established by the Affordable Care Act to test the impact of innovative service delivery models for a pilot project. The pilot was called the Care Team Integration of the Home-Based Workforce.
Testing the Impact of Training Caregivers
This project’s innovative contribution to health care was to recast and enhance the role of home care providers through training and integration into the health care system. The project showed that training home care workers has a positive impact. It is associated with better care, and stronger health outcomes. It is also associated with lower costs through reductions in consumers’ use of the Emergency Department and hospitalizations.
Study results showed that training caregivers reduced the number of repeat visits to the Emergency Room and readmissions to the hospital. This has the potential to create tremendous cost savings to Medicare and Medicaid.
Home care providers are in direct and frequent contact with the consumers they care for. This puts them in the unique position to positively impact consumers’ health.
Read the report here: HOME CARE INTEGRATION TRAINING PROJECT BRIEF
Related Reading:
CCA Training May Reduce ER Visits, Healthcare Costs
