Real Choice Systems Change

MARYLAND

Grant Information


Name of Grantee

Department of Mental Health and Hygiene

Title of Grant

Increasing Access, Service Availability, and Quality in Maryland's Long-Term Care System

Type of Grant

Real Choice Systems Change

Amount of Grant

$1,025,000

Year Original Funding Received

2001

Amount of Supplemental Grant

$360,000

Supplemental Award Received

2002

Expected Completion Date

June 2006

Contact Information


Mark Leeds, Director
410-767-6770
leedsm@dhmh.state.md.us

Lisa Kelemen, Administrator
201 W. Preston Street, Room 122-F
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-767-5095
kelemenl@dhmh.state.md.us

Subcontractor(s)

Mental Hygiene Administration; University of Baltimore Schaefer Center for Public Policy; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and several local health departments

Target Population(s)


People of all ages with disabilities. One grant initiative is designed specifically for children with serious emotional disturbances.

Goals


  • Permanently increase the availability of attendant care services.
  • Provide information and assistance to consumers in acute care hospitals to aid decision-making and assist with transitions back to the community.
  • Assess the quality of community-based long-term care services and use that information to focus on quality improvement efforts in the future.
  • Improve community-based service delivery to children with serious emotional disturbances.

Activities


  • Develop a pilot project to provide outreach to persons in hospitals to inform them of community-based long-term care options to prevent unnecessary institutional placement. The project will include working with a hospital discharge planner to inform individuals of community-based services and programs at the point of discharge from the hospital. This initiative also includes funding for the development of educational materials to inform individuals about community-based programs in Maryland.
  • Target efforts to increase the community long-term care workforce. This includes hosting provider job fairs across the State targeted to direct care workers where technical assistance with completion of the provider applications and specific qualifications can be provided.
  • Develop a capitated demonstration program to better serve children with serious emotional disturbances (SED).
  • Develop performance measures for community-based long-term care programs. This includes development and implementation of consumer satisfaction surveys for Maryland's community-based programs.

Abstract


The Real Choice Systems Change Grant will build on Maryland's commitment to providing home and community based services to individuals in the community. The funding will enable Maryland to address a number of issues in delivering long-term care services. Maryland has an active Consumer Advisory Board (CAB), which convenes regularly, that was built on the consumer workgroup established to develop the Real Choice Systems Change Grant initiatives in summer 2001. The CAB will offer advice and recommendations in the process of the implementation of the grant initiatives. The CAB will work collaboratively with Maryland's Nursing Facility Transition Grant.

The grant includes four initiatives:

  1. Implementation of a pilot project to provide outreach and information to persons of all ages with disabilities in acute care hospitals to ensure that they have comprehensive information about community-based long-term care options and how to access them, particularly when planning for discharge from acute care settings. This initiative has also expanded to include outreach and information to discharge planning professionals. Additionally, a continuing education unit course for discharge planners was developed based on lessons learned from hospital outreach activities.
  2. Focus on implementing activities designed to attract and retain long-term care direct care workers and mitigate the long-term care worker shortage.
  3. Development and implementation of a managed care demonstration program to provide coordinated long-term care services to children with SED who would otherwise likely "fall through the system cracks" and languish in long-term care facilities or psychiatric hospitals. Development and implementation oversight would be grant-funded. Services would be state-funded.
  4. Development of quality indicators for long-term care services, a comprehensive satisfaction survey, and survey approach to be administered to home and community waiver participants and establishment of a quality measurement and improvement process that would be maintained after the grant period concludes.