Kevin Lembo is Connecticut's Healthcare Advocate, an independent state official who advocates for patients and their families on health insurance and other aspects of the health care system.
He has written a Commentary piece which is published in the Hartford Courant. I am pasting in a taste of it.
Dean Rohrer illustration
The At-Home Alternative To Nursing Home
Connecticut's approach to long-term care suffers from an extreme case of "business as usual" - a chronic condition that manifests itself in poor and limited service delivery, and continually stressed budgets. The good news is that it's treatable.
[...] what if there were a way to rein in costs and, at the same time, help us to satisfy the desire of our elders (and ourselves) to stay at home - to age in place - and prevent or delay going into a nursing home? The answer just might be a "Nursing Home Without Walls."
I was first introduced to the Nursing Home Without Walls concept in New York state in the mid-1980s. A rambunctious but powerful Republican state senator in New York, Tarky Lombardi, successfully got a program started in 1977, and it has grown ever since. The concept is simple: If you can safely and more economically provide care at home for someone who would otherwise be admitted to a nursing home, the long-term home care provider can bill 75 percent of the cost of nursing home care to maintain the individual in the community, and prevent or delay nursing home admission.
All of the services that are offered in the nursing home would be offered at home and, in addition, resources could be spent to modify the home environment to accommodate changing needs - ramps and grab bars, for example.
At this point he goes into the cost details, and then says:
Instead of business as usual, why don't we try an innovative approach that has been successful elsewhere? An approach that offers us the choice to stay in our own home, surrounded by the people and things that bring us comfort? It will take courage and determination to make such a change, but can we afford not to?
Kevin Lembo is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. I think right now he is the only candidate for this position. He brings a fresh approach to the job, starting with the fact that he considers it a Real job.
This photo (with MLN's Ctblogger) accompanies an article written by Paul Bass at the New Haven Independent.
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