Date of Graduation

Fall 12-15-2017

Document Access

Project/Capstone - Global access

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Abstract

Hospitalizations are expensive to our healthcare system, and too often can be prevented. A large portion of preventable hospital stays are elderly individuals. In this case, these hospitalizations can also be detrimental to the health of the individual, as they may begin to decline while not going through their daily routines. The Institute on Aging (IOA) is an agency that seeks to keep elderly and disabled adults out of institutionalization. The Community Care Settings Pilot Program (CCSP) is a subset of IOA as a whole, which works with the San Mateo Health Plan patients. Residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFE) play a large role in keeping the elderly population out of being institutionalized, and many of CCSP’s clients move into RCFEs from skilled nursing facilities. The goal at that point is to prevent further hospitalizations. A committee within the CCSP program conducted motivational surveys and quality assurance (QA) assessments at three care homes to ensure that they were meeting standards of care for IOA clients that would be most preventative for hospitalizations. The CCSP committee found that all three care homes passed the motivational survey, RCFE1 and RCFE3 scoring 9 out of 10, RCFE2 scoring 7 out of 10. QA results showed RCFE1 and RCFE3 passing assessment and receiving incentive payment, while RCFE2 did not pass and required follow up. The main trends were RCFEs lacking emergency plans and keeping substances out of reach to residents, as well as level of care by caregivers. The CCSP committee will continue to do yearly routine follow up, as well as more frequent follow up to RCFEs that do not pass to ensure deficiencies are resolved. IOA will also continue to connect RCFEs with stakeholders and resources to resolve deficiencies and maintain highest level of care for residents.

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