Archive for the ‘Home Care’ Category

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Home Care Gets a Boost from Housing Slump

Friday, May 13th, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

Home care providers may be benefiting from the slow economic recovery, according to a May 8, 2011 article in The Milford Daily News. According to the article, more seniors residing in the Milford, MA area have delayed moving to independent living or assisted living communities, instead opting to wait out the housing slump. With real estate prices down, many seniors would be faced with selling their homes for less value or have difficulty selling at all. Those who are still independent enough to care for themselves are choosing to wait it out, hoping for a housing rebound before they’re in a position that they have to move immediately. Seniors choosing to delay moving to long-term care due to housing slump

Betsy Willard, director of community relations for Sunrise Senior Living in Milford, tells the Daily News she’s noticed a decline in referrals for assisted living, but notes that referrals for their memory care facility have remained consistent. Willard believes that’s because memory impairment often becomes a safety issue, so families are more likely to take action to keep their aging loved ones safe, even if it means financial sacrifice.

Seniors who are able to remain at home often do so with the help of home care services, which tends to be more flexible. Assisted living is essentially an all-or-nothing choice; you’re paying for 24-hour care right off the bat, while home care can range from just a few hours per week to round-the-clock care. For this reason, home care is often viewed as a more affordable option. Likewise, McKnight’s Long Term Care News reported yesterday that Genworth Financial’s cost of care survey finds that home care and adult day care costs have remained flat, while the cost of assisted living and skilled nursing facilities has gone up.

Still, consumers should evaluate their options carefully. If a loved one requires care for just a few hours each day, home care or adult day care makes sense. But families reaching a point at which they’re continuously adding hours with a home senior care provider, it might be time to re-evaluate. Home care, at an average cost of $19 per hour, can easily exceed the costs of assisted living and nursing home care if you’re approaching 10 hours per day or more. If your loved one requires 24-hour care, assisted living is a more cost-effective solution.

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Posted in Aging, Home Care, Long Term Care, Memory Care, Senior Living News | 1 Comment »

Home Care Alleviates Caregiver Stress, Reduces Medical Costs

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

Home Instead Senior Care, a national network of locally-owned, in-home, non-medical care providers, recently commissioned a study gauging the role home care services play in the overall continuum of long-term senior care. The study, entitled “The Value of Caregiving at Home,” enlisted a panel of unbiased advisors, including medical professionals, members of academia, researchers and senior care experts to ensure the integrity of the research and methodology.  Home care services help reduce medical costs

The research finds that those receiving home senior care report less frequent physician visits, home care recipients average more than twice as many hours of care per week than those not paying for care, and caregivers provide higher ratings for the quality of care received when paid in-home care services are part of a loved one’s care.

Prior research shows that non-medical home care reduces medical costs by about $25 billion in the U.S. each year, primarily by reducing the number of hospital visits. It’s not clear whether that figure calculates the medical costs saved by caregivers, but Home Instead’s study indicates that caregivers report better health when a loved one is receiving paid home care, likely due to decreased responsibilities and stress, allowing caregivers to pay more attention to their own health needs.

Specifically, caregivers of loved ones with dementia report fewer hospital visits when paid home care is involved–18 percent report visiting the hospital as an outpatient wtihin the last year among those whose loved ones were receiving home care, compared to 40 percent when home care services were not involved.

CaregiverStress.com reports that 83 percent of caregivers say the task is “very demanding,” and 77 percent describe their loved one’s care needs as “overwhelming.” Home care services support not only the patient, but family caregivers as well by alleviating some of the pressure and providing an additional support system, and it’s an alternative for families who aren’t yet ready to place their loved ones in assisted living or nursing homes.

Home care can also enable family caregivers to continue working, something that many give up (either by choice or lack of choice) to care for their loved ones. This is often the case when adult children are providing care for elderly parents and must continue to work to provide for their own families. Seventy-one percent of family caregivers utilizing home care services are employed, and 51 percent maintain part-time employment.

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Passive Monitoring May Reduce Patient Care Costs in Assisted Living, Home Health

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

Wellness technology, such as digital blood pressure monitors and electronic emergency alert systems, has been around for many years. But even with these advances that make caring for elderly and disabled persons simpler, the cost of monitoring and caring for patients in assisted living facilities and home care settings steadily increases. A new wave of technology may soon be entering the market that has proven to reduce care costs and promote aging in place: Think underwear equipped with blood pressure monitors and pills and capsules with microchips that send a message to indicate whether a patient has taken a medication. Wellness technology improves patient monitoring

Robin Felder, associate director of clinical chemistry and toxicology at the University of Virginia, advocates for the use of what she has dubbed “passive” technology for patient monitoring, citing a 2007 publication in the Journal of Telemedicine and e-Health which showed a staggering 74 percent reduction in the cost of caring for assisted living residents with the use of these devices. According to Felder, the key to the success of passive monitoring devices is that unlike current mainstream gadgets, such as automatic blood pressure monitors, passive devices don’t require any thought or effort on behalf of the patient or caregiver.

Felder says that the majority of blood pressure monitors (95 percent) go unused and stashed away in a drawer or closet. The reason, notes Felder, is that while they’re simpler to use, patients still have to interrupt their activities to use them. Felder spoke during a “Views from the Top” session at last week’s HIMSS conference, where she introduced a number of innovative technologies and products that will make wireless patient wellness monitoring (which Felder calls “wellness support”) a  more realistic possibility:

  • Everyday garments–yes, even your underwear–could function as blood pressure monitors and pulse sensors.
  • Digestible microchips in tablets and pills (that will cost pharmaceutical companies about one cent each) to indicate whether a patient has taken the medication as well as provide data such as stomach pH and other vitals. If that’s not enough, this little chip will transmit the readings to a cell phone using Blueooth technology.
  • Contact lenses and other eye inserts will have the capability to monitor glucose levels in tears in diabetic patients. These gadgets cost about a dime each.
  • Everyday bathroom fixtures will measure your weight, body temperature and other vital signs. No more hiding from the scale!

All of the information gathered through these various devices will be integrated into a patient’s health and wellness records, providing a basis for targeted information to help patients lead healthy lifestyles. Felder terms this the “Medical Cloud,” or the concept of integrating multiple sources of data for multiple clinicians to collectively manage and monitor patients aging  at home, in assisted living facilities or other community-based long-term care facilities.

Read the related article at MobiHealthNews.

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Posted in Aging, Home Care, Long Term Care, Senior Living News | 12 Comments »

Senior Home Health Care: 60% of Paid Caregivers Make Medication Errors

Monday, February 28th, 2011 by Angela Stringfellow

Researchers from Northwestern University surveyed 98 paid caregivers recruited from physicians’ offices, caregiver agencies, independent living facilities and senior shopping areas to gauge the health literacy of caregivers who serve in a paid capacity for non-family members. To determine the level of health literacy, face-to-face interviews were conducted using The Test for Functional Health Literacy (TOFHLA). Medication aptitude was tested by having participants sort medications into pill boxes by following the directions supplied on the medication bottles. Senior caregivers may make medication errors

More than 60% of participants made errors dispensing the medications into the appropriate containers, indicating difficulties following medication instructions. This finding is significant, because many seniors rely on paid, non-family caregivers for assistance with activities of daily living, which may include medication management. Among the participants, 35.7% were found to have inadequate health literacy, and 85.7% performed health-related tasks, such as medication reminders, sorting or dispensing medications, or accompanying patients to medical appointments.

Seniors who don’t reside in assisted living facilities, independent living or nursing homes and don’t have family nearby capable of managing their care often hire outside caregivers from home care agencies to help manage their activities of daily living. Dr. Lee Lindquist, lead author of the study, says improper medication administration could result in adverse drug reactions or interactions, which could lead to hospitalization. Lindquist says that in some cases, caregivers are genuinely trying to help their clients by taking on additional health-related tasks, but inadequate eduction could make these circumstances dangerous.

When choosing a home care provider, it’s important to check the agency’s reputation and request verification that the caregivers employed by the agency have training in medication management and have clear criminal history and background checks. You can learn more about home care in our home care center.

Read a related article on Dalje.com and the abstract from the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

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It’s Official: Medicare Physician Fees Reduced by Nearly 25 Percent

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 by Stuart Grinnell

Today, November 3, 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule that improves access to preventative care for Medicare beneficiaries — but also issues a steep 23% cut to Medicare physician fees that will take effect December 1, 2010. The cut will be followed by an additional reduction of 1.9% scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2011. Medicare physician fees reduced

The cut comes under the sustainable growth-rate formula. While previous attempts to reduce Medicare physician payments were thwarted by Congress (they delayed a scheduled cut of 20% in June 2010), CMS calls the current measure “critical,” according to an article on ModernHealthcare.com, and says officials “are committed to permanently reforming the Medicare payment formula.”

Home health care agencies will also experience a reduction of 4.89% in 2011. However, the new rules also include payment incentives of 10% for primary-care providers and general surgeons in areas considered health professional shortage areas under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The reduction figure does account for inflation, wage updates, and other factors.

Finally, outpatient hospital payments face greater accountability in the form of increased quality reporting requirements. In order to qualify for full payment, hospitals must report a total of 15 quality measures in 2012 and an additional 8 quality measures in 2013.

Senior advocates fear that these latest measures will actually result in reduced access to medical care for seniors, as they predict that physicians and hospital systems will stop accepting Medicare payments due to reduced fees and increased accountability.

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Posted in Home Care, Obama's Health Care Plan, Senior Health Care Reform, Senior Living News | 2 Comments »

Care2Learn to Showcase Healthcare Training Online at National Association of Home Care

Friday, October 1st, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice will kick off its 29th annual Meeting & Exposition in Dallas, Texas, on October 2nd. The event will run through October 6th, and this year’s theme is “Home Care & Hospice: Pioneers in the New Health Care Frontier,” focusing on the home care and hospice industry taking a leadership role in reshaping the healthcare system as it braces to accomodate the aging baby boomer generation. healthcare training online

Indeed, home care and hospice will become an increasingly important player in health care as the baby boomers – 78 million strong – begin to enter their senior years. One trend among surveys of the aging boomers is that this generation has a strong desire to age in place, and the home care industry is poised to capitalize on the opportunity.

A number of experts will be speaking at this year’s exhibition, including author and therapist John Gray, Ph.D., George W. Bush, and Sean Donahue, Senior Vice President at The Herald Group, who designs campaigns for Fortune 100 companies to integrate the latest in online media and advocacy. A number of other marketing and technology experts will be sharing their insights during the four-day event.

Among the vendors at this year’s event is Care2Learn, which provides online continuing education and licensing courses for a variety of healthcare professions. Online training is becoming increasingly common, and will be essential in the coming years as more healthcare professionals are needed to care for millions of aging baby boomers. The flexible nature of online training enables current professionals to receive additional training or even specialize in a geriatric field while still maintaining a full-time position. Exhibition participants can preview healthcare training online at Care2Learn’s booth.

Visit the NAHC website for more information on the Exhibition

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Posted in Aging, Baby Boomers, Home Care, Home Care Marketing, Long Term Care, Senior Housing Marketing, Senior Living News | 1 Comment »

Taking Stock of Safety for National Home Safety Month

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

June is National Home Safety Month — a great time to evaluate the safety of your aging loved one’s living quarters, whether they live in your home, in their own home, or in an assisted living facility. Regardless of the living arrangements, safety hazards could still be lurking in inconspicuous places.

GTR Newspapers does a nice job of summing up some common — but frequently overlooked — hazards that could be potentially dangerous for those you care about. The article quotes Andrew Garrean, owner of the Tulsa area’s local Home Instead Senior Care franchise, who notes that the elderly have both a lifetime of accumulated possessions and the same daily influx of junk mail that we all deal with: catalogs, magazines, newspapers. And if your loved one hesitates to discard unused or old items, that can spell disaster as clutter builds, increasing the risk for both fires and falls.clutter

Look for signs of clutter in your loved one’s home, such as piles of unopened mail, cluttered closets, jammed kitchen drawers, cluttered kitchen cabinets, and stockpiles of never-used items in attics or other storage areas. If your loved experiences frustration when he tries to organize, that’s also an indication of a potential clutter problem.

How to help your loved one eliminate clutter

You can help your loved one maintain safety in their home or other setting by helping them clean out clutter. If your family member is resistant to throwing away items, insist that they be reorganized, moved to storage, or relocated to a location that won’t pose a fall or fire risk.

Make sure rugs have rubber backing so they won’t slide, or remove them altogether. Never allow cords to run across the flow of traffic, whether across a hallway, through a doorway, or across a room — even if under a rug.

Knick knacks and excess furniture should also be removed to improve the flow of traffic. You shouldn’t have to navigate around furniture to move from one room to another; ensure there’s a clear path. Knick knacks can be easily broken and hard for an elderly person to clean up, so they then pose a cutting risk as well as the possibility of slipping or tripping on shattered pieces.

Want more home safety tips? See our articles on dementia safety and assisted living safety.

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The Sandwich Generation: Redefining the Modern Family

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

As if the baby boomer generation hasn’t been the subject of enough labeling, they’ve now also earned the title, “The Sandwich Generation” due to the phoenomenon of  a growing number of people in this demographic caring for both children and aging parents at the same time.

A recent article in San Bernadino’s Sun offers some useful insight into the Sandwich Generation and the challenges and opportunities that result from multiple generations living under the same roof. For one, most families appreciate the benefit of being able to care for an ailing parent in their home (saving on long-term care expenses), but worry they will be spending too much time together. The families exemplified in The Sun’s article were able to offer their loved ones their own living quarters, with a bedroom and bath, so ample private time was easy to come by. On the other hand, it also allowed everyone to share more quality time with parents, children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, that may not have been possible under other circumstances.

Expert Advice for Multigenerational Families

Matthew Kaplan, a Penn State Intergenerational Programs Extension Specialist who has conducted extensive research on multigenerational families, offers some advice to families facing the situation. For one, he stressed the importance of setting aside quality time for the nuclear family. For example, the Hall family discussed in the article took weekend getaways by hiring a home care agency to care for their mother. Many assisted living facilities offer respite stays, which can provide both a break from caregiving and an opportunity to strengthen the nuclear family bond.

Other tips offered by Kaplan, in cooperation with Home Instead Senior Care,  include setting ground rules and expectations at the beginning, open lines of communication, and respect for one another’s privacy.

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Families Turn to In-Home Care to Cut Costs

Friday, May 14th, 2010 by Jacqui Tom

The need for in-home caregivers has grown in recent years. Fueled in part by increasing long-term care costs, in-home care serves as a viable option for families who need just a few hours of care per day, or for individuals who are capable of living on their own but need help with errands and general housekeeping. In some cases, a senior’s family lives too far away to provide these services, and in-home care can provide just the right amount of support to ensure a loved one is being cared for.

But is home care really cheaper?

While Genworth Financial’s 2010 Cost of Care Survey indicates that home care costs are rising more slowly than rates for assisted living and nursing homes, home care can still be a significant expense. If a senior needs constant supervision, or even care for more than just a few hours each day, the costs can quickly exceed that spent for a residential facility.

Genworth reports the average national median hourly rate for homemaker services to be $18 per hour, and for home health aide services (which can offer hands-on care), $19 per hour. For an eight hour day, your costs would quickly reach $144 to $152 per day. In comparison, adult day care services average approximately $60 per day, so if transportation were available, this option would be more beneficial for those requiring supervision while family members are at work.

Home care can augment family caregiving

Many families are opting to enlist home care services to augment the support the family provides, however, to keep costs down. The Mansfield News Journal notes that the number of jobs available for in-home caregivers has increased over the past few years, during economic times that caused demand for many other professions to decrease.

The article refers to a study conducted by the home care agency Senior Helpers. Findings indicate that one-fifth of Americans will be age 65 and older within just a few years, so the need for caregivers will continue to rise. The study also finds that 20 percent of Americans have spent some time caring for an aging loved one. But many caregivers must hold outside jobs or simply can’t do it all alone, so even the help of an outside agency for less than 10 hours per week (the norm for recessionary times, according to Peter Ross, CEO of Senior Helpers) is a huge help.

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